I am writing this last blog (for now) in the van after a long day at Chimelong Resort. It has been a good last day in China and I think we are a little sorry to leave.

Hahahahahaha. No were are not! We can’t wait to get home! Up early tomorrow and then the train to Hong Kong. One more night in a hotel, then we leave for the States via Tokyo Thursday morning.

Today started with a late, leisure breakfast and then we hung around the hotel room until after lunch. Our van arrived to take us to Chimelong Resort at 1:30. This is a massive entertainment complex about 30 minutes from downtown Guangzhou that has an amusement park, water park, safari park, and is home to the Chimelong International Circus.

We started the day at the safari park. As a family, we try to go to as many zoos as we can, and we have been to quite a few. The safari park beats them all. First, it is beautiful. Second, you can get close to the animals (anyone remember the picture from Ali’s adoption of Britt holding a tiger?). Third, they have a LOT of animals. They have at least ten of everything, and probably more. White Bengal tigers? At least ten. Red panda’s? Probably twelve. I have never seen such a selection of animals. Plus, today being a Tuesday, the place was empty and it is usually packed. So, we went and enjoyed the beautiful 75 degree sunny weather.

We started with the tram ride through the safari area, which is always enjoyable. But, after that we went through several area that we had either never seen before or were new. We started with the Jurassic Park section, which about ended the day for Riley. We kept telling her over and over that everything was fake, but she didn’t care. She was scared to death. She literally ran through the T-Rex exhibit! Poor thing.

At one point we stopped in an area where people were feeding parrots and a guy asked the girls if they would like to come up and have the birds perch on their arms and eat from their hands? Britt and Ali were all for that, so I went up with them to take pictures. There were a huge number of birds and we all ended up there in the. Leah agreed to give it a shot and started to panic when three of them landed on her, so she started yelling which spooked the birds and they started landing on Kelly and me. Jessie was about to have a coronary! I tried to get Riley to take a picture of the bird that landed on me, but the birds started chasing her and she was literally running around me in circles with my camera shrieking. It was quite hysterical. I have lots of pictures, but again…

Because of her fear of snakes, I thought I would take the rest of the girls down the Snake Trail and leave Leah with Kelly. But, a few feet in Leah decided she wanted to join us, so we plowed forward. In the end, she was fine but it was Riley again who was the nervous nelly. At one point, in a room with animated snakes, one scared her so badly that she she started crying! This little girl is NEVER going to the zoo again!

The rest if the safari park passed without incident. We got to see the panda’s which were not as good as in previous years, but still a very enjoyable day.

We left the safari park and our driver took us over to the Chimelong International Circus. We had never attended this before, but have always wanted to, so today was the day. We ate a quick dinner on the grounds and took our seats.

The circus was amazing. Kind of a Barnum meets Cirque. I can’t believe we never went on a previous trip. There wasn’t a single bad act and the special effects made the circus very enjoyable. They had animal acts, acrobatic acts with things I had never seen before, the sphere of death with six motorcycles flying around, high dive acts, plus Carnival half way through. It isn’t cheap, but if you are ever here, it is worth every penny.

As we drive to the hotel, the girls and Kelly and talking and laughing in the back if the van, having a good time. It is nice that everyone is starting to become a family. I can’t wait until the entire family is together in a few I short days, including Zach!

When we get back, the medical aspects start for everyone, including Britt. We will have a month of medical appointments and procedures, some of which have yet to be scheduled. I will keep updating for awhile as we work through the transition back, so stay tuned! Plus I will post all the pictures that you missed!

Cameron