Lions and tigers and bears...oh my! (day 10)

Today was busy!  We had to get Liana's TB test read this morning so we met the other families downstairs at 9:30 and went back to the medical clinic.  Results: negative...woohoo!  Then, those of us who wanted to took one of the buses to the Safari Park while the others went back to the hotel.  Of the 15 families, only 4 wanted to go.  When we were waiting before the TB results, one of the fathers who wasn't going to the Safari Park was talking about us taking our kids to the Safari Park and well...bringing Ella and Ethan on this trip at all and he said that we were bold.  Ha!  That is definitely not the word that comes to mind when I think of us bringing our 5 year old and 2 year old to China to adopt our new 2 year old.  Stupid, maybe but bold?  Nah.  The Safari Park trip was a no brainer!  But I know why most of the families didn't go.  We were gone from 9:30 this morning until 5:30 this evening.  No naps and most of the day spent in horrible heat and humidity.  And I'm no wuss, I lived through the hottest summer ever in Texas!  But this heat, oh my word, it was brutal. 

So, the Safari Park....awesome.  We walked around and saw giraffes, albino wallabies, flamingos, koala bears and panda bears!  PANDA BEARS!  I have never seen a panda bear before and they were just as adorable as I imagined they would be.  I have a new favorite animal.  The koalas were adorable too.  Aww...so cute!  And we threw bananas to the elephants and then they sprayed us with water.  In that heat, Ella, Ethan and I were getting as close to the nasty water coming from an elephant trunk as we could.  Anything to cool off!  Okay, actually it was just fun to be sprayed at by an elephant.  I'm eight.  :-)  Then we fed giraffes a branch of leaves.  Our giraffe stole ours right away while everyone else held their branches like champs until all the leaves were gone.  After walking around for hours, we hopped on a little tram to see the other part of the park.  Honestly, I just wanted to be done but it was so worth it.  This is where the safari part comes in.  You just drive through all of these animals and the tram gets blocked by camels or zebras or whatever crossing it's path.  And then there are tigers, bears, lions, wolves on the sides so close to the tram and the only thing separating them and us are a couple of electric wires.  The staff keeps the animals out being fun to look at by feeding them.  There was a man in with all of these hippos just surrounded by them throwing food to them and from what I've always heard, hippos are pretty scary.  Better him than me, I guess.  Toward the end of our ride, thunder started rumbling in the distance and the next thing we knew, we were caught in a downpoar.  It was fine because we were under cover but when the ride was over, we had to book it for the exit.  We were all soaked when we got on the bus but it was a relief from the heat anyways. 

The bus dropped all of us at the hotel except for Ethan, Erik and our guide because they had to go to the hospital to get Ethan's stitches out.  I had to get out with everyone else because our laundry was being delivered to the hotel soon (oh, happy day...clean clothes!).  It went quickly and they actually got back before our laundry made it to the hotel.  Another mom was asking about Ethan's owie and as we were telling her about how he got it, she did a little more questioning than I had about these shots that they had given Ethan when he got his stitches.  I assumed that one was before the stitches so that he wouldn't feel them.  I was wrong.  I never asked many details about what happened at the hospital because I could tell Erik didn't want to tell me and I was too afraid to ask.  It turns out, our poor two year old boy received his first stitches ever without anything to deaden the pain, in a hospital in China where the doctors are not gentle at all like they are in the states.  I freaked out when I found this out.  They didn't give him any shots until after the stitches.  I took the kids upstairs while Erik waited for our laundry and I hugged Ethan and lost it.  I cried and told him that I was so sorry that he had to go through that and I was so sorry that I wasn't there.  He patted my arm and reassured me, "Stitches out!  I all better!  I'm sorry, Mommy!"  There I go again.  I just can't believe it.  And you should see his wound.  It looks terrible.  They aren't even sure if they got all of the stitches because there's this huge scab on it.  The wound is big and there were only 3 stitches.  I got a very small cut earlier this year on my hand and it needed a couple of stitches so him only having three is ridiculous.  Our guide was telling me that there were only stitches on part of it and the other part was just left.  I am so angry.  I expected that they wouldn't be as kind or gentle as we are used to but I didn't expect that they would make a little toddler boy get stitches without anything to help with the pain and not even give him enough stitches for it to heal like it should.  Can I just say how glad I am that Liana is coming home with us now?!  I have heard horror stories of hospitals in China and I did not want any of us to need one while we were here.  Now you can see why.  My poor baby! 

Okay, I need to end on a happy note so I will tell you a little bit about Erik and Liana.  She loves her daddy and thinks he is just hilarious!  He is, of course, the goofball play buddy while I am the cuddle you, take care of you mommy.  Last night is the perfect illustration of their relationship.  Erik put Liana to bed and when he laid her down, she kept popping back up in the crib.  When he went to her crib to try and lay her back down and tell her to go to sleep, I assume firmly, she just started cracking up as soon as she saw him, before he could say a thing.  I mean, busting up like he was seriously tickling her or something.  I snickered at him and said that he really has a firm hand with Liana.  She has got her daddy wrapped around her little finger, for sure! 

 Canton Tower-the tallest structure in China

 Throwing bananas to the elephants

 Get ready for cuteness!

 Me and my cubs

 Baby red panda

 Red panda

 Feeding a giraffe

 Thieving giraffe

 Chinglish

Ummm...?