Our Joy Filled Journey: Safari Park

Ben holding a bird at Safari Park

Today we would finally set out for the Safari Park. The weather looked to be ok -- mostly overcast and low 80's for temps. We started by having breakfast with the Frankes on the 30th floor. Luke showed Jacob how to navigate breakfast and spent breakfast with him. Luke has moved on from "hot milk", which he now says "uck" to cold milk. He's going to love Wisconsin with it's abundance of inexpensive, high quality milk and dairy products.

After breakfast, it was down to the subway. This would be a long ride with five stops, then a transfer and seven more stops. By the time we arrived at the front gate of Safari Park, it was almost an hour after we had left the hotel.

The Chimelong Safari Park claims to be the largest wild animal them park in the world. I'm not going to dispute that claim - it was impressive. For example, they have fourteen panda bears in their exhibit. I'm not sure there are fourteen panda bears in all of the US. One of the highlights of the park was the interaction with the animals. Our kids got to feed giraffes, elephants and tigers and get their picture taken with a bird on their arm. The nice thing is that these experiences, while a bit extra, didn't seem to be too expensive. They also had interesting species like a white tiger and albino kangaroo.

Panda bear at Safari Park

We also enjoyed a couple of animal shows with elephants dunking a basketball and doing other stunts to a hippo show featuring birds and various African animals like zebras and gazelles. It's a big park and there ended up being a lot of walking. My phone keeps track of total steps and it recorded 20,620. It wore everyone down and there were some moments of tired frustration, but overall I think everyone had an enjoyable time. During the day, the kids collected stamps in a passport so they could "graduate" at the end of the day. Cami and Ian really wanted to do this so Dana, Luke, and Alex headed off with them to the graduation ceremony while Ben and I walked the snake path. To walk the snake path, you have to go on a one way path that leads you through a Jurassic period, some birds and various other exhibits. What we thought would take only 15 minutes took us over 45. By the time we met back up with everyone else, the kids had already "graduated" although the graduation almost didn't happen as the information in the book didn't quite match what was happening on the ground and the language difference didn't help. But even though the kids missed the actual graduation ceremony, they had a special little ceremony for Luke, Cami Ian and Alex.

When we arrived back at the hotel, the visa and associated paperwork for Luke had arrived via the Frankes. Then we started on packing. That's never a fun task trying to figure out how to fit everything into the bags you have. Dana and Ben went out for a quick luggage shopping trip. Dana had been planning to buy a piece of luggage and time was running out and we were going to need the extra bag. She found a nice large four wheeled piece for about $30 USD - a steal if it lasts through the trip. Tomorrow is a transit day to Hong Kong.