"It's like a freak show in your neighborhood"

Well we've had two exhausting days in Shanghai and we've realized why people leave this town when it is a major Chinese holiday. On Wednesday, we went to the wild animal park in Pudong. Let's just say it was like Disney on New Year's Eve. The only exception was we were one of three white families in the entire park. We were sure we could've made a small fortune if we would've put Noah and Levi in a cage. We did all of the walking parts of the park and then we got on a bus and drove through a safari area. We saw tigers, lions, cheetahs, giraffes and brown bears. To get to the bus however was our biggest challenge. We had to wait in line for 45 minutes. I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but Chinese have no concept of personal space. We were bumped, banged, petted and had smoke blown in our faces the entire time. Not to mention all of the people who tried to cut in front of us. So finally we get to the spot where the line divides and you separate to go onto two different buses, there was about 5 people waiting there to try and cut in front of us. The people next to us started yelling at them in Chinese but they weren't listening. They just kept shoving their way in, until Mark raised his arm up and pushed them back and yelled "No". At the same time, people started falling back like a bowling ball effect. I was grabbing the kids and shoving them forward and around the people who were trying to cut. We let the people who were yelling at them in Chinese in front of us. All in all, we got on the bus and they didn't get to cut in front of us. It is just so common here and it is very hard to get used to. The safari ride was great though and it was neat seeing a bear sit right outside the bus window. Of course I have no pictures because we forgot to put the memory card back in the camera. I did remember to take my camera though! We later went to our friend's the Hus' house for a BBQ. It was fun to spend time with them again.

On Thursday, we decided to be very adventuresome. One of my friends had recommended going to the Longhua Temple fair. We were the only white people there and it was packed. We were once again bumped, banged, shoved and petted as we made our way through this fair. The fair is a celebration at a Buddhist temple. So we decided to be brave and pay our 10 yuan a piece and go into the temple area. I stood in awe with tears streaming down my face as I watched hundreds of people kneel before these golden images, praying to them and putting their hope and trust in them . It was a grim reality of the lost and depraved country of C****. We took a lot of pictures there so we will include some. When we were taking our kids pictures, we turned around and it was like the paparazzi behind us also taking our kids pictures. One lady was shoving her two boys at our kids because she wanted them to have their picture taken with our kids really bad. So, through the art of charades I figured our what she wanted and I had the kids go back for more pictures.

If ever there was a time to try meat on a stick, yesterday would've been our day. I think there was every kind of "meat" on a stick plus a lot of other food. It was about impossible to get anywhere near the booths though. So after a few hours of being a freak show we decided to go home. The kids were begging us to please just stay home today, which actually worked out very well because Hang Lei has the day off.

Hang Lei

For all of you who were wondering where or how our boys were going to play outside with us living in an apartment, well they have figured it out. There is a school's soccer field across from our apartment complex and so they ride their bikes there and play soccer for hours. They have a blast, it's close, there are usually other kids there to play with and they get all of their energy out. So it is actually working out very well.

I have to let you know that my oven has been much kinder to me lately. I baked another cake on Wednesday and it held at a steady 350 degrees for a full thirty minutes. My friend also showed me what this funny looking rack, stick with prongers on it and pan were for. My oven can make rotisserie chicken. How cool is that! I even took a picture of it for all of you...