Yuexiu Park

 Marthaler and McCarthy families at Yuexiu Park

One of the things we wanted to do in Guangzhou was visit the Safari Park.  Our new friends the McCarthy's had visited on Friday and had a great time.  At the pool, we ran into another family that visited and they loved it too, but advised not to go the day before you leave.  We had considered going today, but the weather was looking questionable today and tomorrow with a good chance of rain.  Plus, we figured the park would be busier on a weekend and the entrance fee was slightly higher.  So looking at our schedule and looking at the weather, we determined Tuesday, the day before we would head to Hong Kong would probably be the opportune day.

But for today, we weren't totally sure what we should do.  We had a couple of ideas, with one being Yeuxiu Park, the largest urban park in Guangzhou at over 200 acres.  It has history, green space, and amusement - something for everyone.  It turns out the McCarthy's also wanted to go since their oldest son Robert is an avid birder.  He is excited to identify birds of southern China and a large park would provide some good opportunities.

Ben buying subway tokens

Since we hadn't yet ridden the Guangzhou Metro subway and the McCarthy's had, we welcomed the opportunity to learn from someone else.  It turns out the Guangzhou Metro is easy to use, inexpensive, efficient and seems to be quite new and in good repair.  Yeuxiu Park was a quick three stops (with one transfer) away from the hotel.

The park entrance is a few hundred meters from the subway exit and you are immediately greeted by a lake surrounded by greenery.  We tried to find an English map, but it seems that no paper maps, English or Chinese, were available for the taking.  So we snapped a picture of the park map on the sign and started walking.  The park is built on some hills and depending on the path you take, there are a lot of steps.  We hiked up several sets of stairs and then down again, eventually coming out by an amusement park and a man made lake where you could rent an electric or paddle boat.  Most of our kids wanted to ride on a boat and Robert wanted to keep going in search of the next bird so we split up.  I took Alex, Ian, Cami and Luke on a boat while Dana and Ben stayed behind.  Everyone wanted to drive the boat, so I ended up setting a timer so everyone would have equal turns.  I'm not sure I'm ready to teach anyone to drive yet.  This was a slow moving boat and trying to keep everyone on course was exhausting!

A rock in the bamboo forest

After we disembarked, we decided to get the kids something to eat.  Despite our large, expansive breakfast, our kids always seem to get hungry before we do.  And I feel bad for Luke because a consistent schedule is good for kids of any age and we have not been consistent at all when we  eat meals other than breakfast, and even that varied depending on our appointments for the day.  Of course, the kids had noodles and we followed that up with ice cream treats.  About that time, the McCarthy's came back to the area so we walked with them through the bamboo forest.

Our crew seemed to be dragging and the sky was starting to look like it might rain eventually so we started to head back while the McCarthy's were planning to go to the Marriott for lunch.  Before leaving, we looked at the map and realized we had only touched a small portion of the park.  The park contains another small amusement park, and ancient tower, a museum, a stadium and more.  We had maybe explored 1/10 of the park.  A return trip might be in order.

One of the highlights of the park for me was some of the sings that had English translations that maybe weren't exactly what the person had in mind.  My favorite one was a sign that said, "Excellent Toilet".  I've snapped pictures of a few more for your viewing pleasure.

I think the Wicked Witch translated this one

Good advice.  More good advice - use spellcheck!

The toilet wasn't bad by Chinese standards, but the excellent toilets are in America.

After returning to the hotel, I took the kids swimming which seems to be a daily routine now.  The weather was warm and it still hadn't rained.  We're still not sure what we're doing tomorrow.  Our schedule has the Chen Clam Academy but may do something different as we haven't heard rave reviews about this historical/cultural stop.  Tonight, the Franke family is arriving in Hong Kong and we're looking forward to meeting up with them tomorrow.  Their soon to be son Jacob, and our son Luke became friends on their trip to America last summer and I've told Luke that he'll be seeing Jacob on Monday.  He seems to be looking forward to that although I'm never 100% sure because of the language differences.  Generally, I think we can communicate basic information fairly well, but in other areas, it's like having a baby -- you're left to guess if you've communicated correctly and been understood correctly.