Day 14: Guangzhou, City Zoo, Group Dinner

Gonna keep this short.  I won't name names, but someone was a little stinker last night and decided to wake up every 30-45 minutes to remind us that she could cry really loudly.  She's out right now (thankfully) and it looks like she should sleep tonight, and so should I.

Today was another optional tour, so we got onto a bus and went to the Guangzhou city zoo.  We were actually both completely exhausted after a night of no sleep, and we didn't really decide to go until the last minute... we figured we'd be even more miserable staying back at the hotel room.

We're so glad we went, though, because we had a great time and Nora got to point at all the animals and make happy little noises.  For 10 yuan you could get a handful of branches with leaves and feed the giraffes, and I had Nora with me when we did.  We got a great video which I will post when we're home and video isn't a huge pain to work with.  I'll also spare you pictures of animals, because you know what animals look like, and taking pictures of animals at the zoo always sounds like a good idea at the time, but then you feel like a total tool for taking pictures of zoo animals, because who is going to want to look at those?  People who haven't heard of Google, that's who.

Our little group arrives.

Nora, being a year of the tiger baby, communes with her kindred spirit animals.

Um... we took this picture of what appears to be the life cycle of a zebra.  Apparently zebras get born, play, study hard, eat McDonalds, shoot some hoops, then sprout wings and soar?  My college zoology class is a bit distant now, but I think some steps are missing.

Nora took a big, fat nap after we got home (hooray), and apparently I curled up on the little lounge chair here in the room and totally crashed myself (hooray).  I don't even remember Nora getting up or Jen taking her down to the playroom so I could have some quiet.  Jen is a wonderful wife, that one.

This evening we had another group dinner and went to the Cantonese restaurant around the corner from us, and as always, the food was amazing.  What was more amazing was that we tried feeding Nora a regular dinner before we went, made sure to find quiet tables away from large bunches of people, and she completely behaved in my lap, as long as I kept some noodles or an occasional sesame-crusted cashew coming her way.

No one seemed to know if the restaurant had a name.  Everyone just called it "the Cantonese restaurant."

Being mainly a seafood restaurant, here is where you can have a little meet 'n' greet with your dinner before service.  This also serves as the neighborhood seafood market, and there were a lot more tanks than pictured here.

Alligator tail, anyone?

And finally... a new contender for the Award for Best English Mistranslation: Clothing Category.

Tomorrow's big plan is our visa appointment at the U.S. consulate... when that's done, we can officially leave for home.  Wow, home...

I love China, I love the people here, the culture, the food, the art, the history, but living out of a hotel room gets really, really old, even if it's a nice one.  I just want my own bed, my dogs, my own shower (okay, that's not true, the giant overhead rainfall shower here is joyous), and the joy of not worrying about where to go for food two meals a day.

I love China... but I'm ready to be home.