"Hey, you there, come closer...do you have any "finger food"?"
"Hey look, Angelina Jolie, with one of her adopted babies! Where's Brad Pitt? Wait, I thought he had more hair than that. And I didn't realize he was so short."
Today we traveled to the Five Springs Park. I had in mind a place like Winton Woods or Miami Whitewater, you know, trees, hiking paths, etc. Uh...no. Set right up against the Five Spring Mountains, this park is where thousands of residents go to to relax (mostly the elderly). You can see various groups performing Tia Chi exercises, playing table tennis, badminton, using Chinese yo-yos, on so on. What made this park extremely unique was that several Buddhist temples and Taoist Temples are here. Monks live here and pray daily, these temples host many religious holidays and feasts.
Also within the park is the Lanzhou Zoo. Picture animals that are in need of bathing, inside concrete cages with simple fencing separating YOU from THEM. You can literally stick your finger through the puma or leopard's fence and hope they don't mistake it for an afternoon snack. Feel free to feed them french fries or anything else you have, the "no feeding the animals" policy isn't enforced.
At the park, as well as walking around later downtown, we felt like rock stars. They don't see many Westerners in these parts and couple that with us carrying around a Chinese baby drew the attention of nearly everyone. Chinese don't stare to be rude, they are simply very curious. On many occasions we were surrounded by onlookers and had to have our guide explain why the baby's hair was black and Mrs. South's hair was blond. Is the father Chinese? they would ask. (Well, yes, her father probably was Chinese).
For lunch we tried a local favorite restaurant known for its beef noodles. DE-LISH! For dinner, we ventured out and found a dumpling place. Lucky for us, one of the customers took pity on us and helped us order some food. Her English was limited but MORE than adequate enough to make sure we knew what we were about to eat. We must have looked completely foolish trying to use chopsticks. We managed though. The dumplings ended up being quite yummy.
There is SO much more to include about today but not enough time.
We included some pictures of some examples of how difficult it is sometimes to translate Chinese into English and still get the same meaning across. It can be amusing at times.
Tomorrow, off to the Lanzhou museum, one of the top five in China.
Also within the park is the Lanzhou Zoo. Picture animals that are in need of bathing, inside concrete cages with simple fencing separating YOU from THEM. You can literally stick your finger through the puma or leopard's fence and hope they don't mistake it for an afternoon snack. Feel free to feed them french fries or anything else you have, the "no feeding the animals" policy isn't enforced.
At the park, as well as walking around later downtown, we felt like rock stars. They don't see many Westerners in these parts and couple that with us carrying around a Chinese baby drew the attention of nearly everyone. Chinese don't stare to be rude, they are simply very curious. On many occasions we were surrounded by onlookers and had to have our guide explain why the baby's hair was black and Mrs. South's hair was blond. Is the father Chinese? they would ask. (Well, yes, her father probably was Chinese).
For lunch we tried a local favorite restaurant known for its beef noodles. DE-LISH! For dinner, we ventured out and found a dumpling place. Lucky for us, one of the customers took pity on us and helped us order some food. Her English was limited but MORE than adequate enough to make sure we knew what we were about to eat. We must have looked completely foolish trying to use chopsticks. We managed though. The dumplings ended up being quite yummy.
There is SO much more to include about today but not enough time.
We included some pictures of some examples of how difficult it is sometimes to translate Chinese into English and still get the same meaning across. It can be amusing at times.
Tomorrow, off to the Lanzhou museum, one of the top five in China.
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