We went to the zoo!

I've been bad about writing here, but I think it's because we haven't really done much on our days off. We have two different classes each. I teach 3 year-olds for 3 hours on Wednesdays and 6 years olds on Saturday. Dave teaches 4-5 year-olds on Tuesday and 3 year olds on Friday. We both agree that teaching 3 year olds for 3 hours straight is the most ridiculously hard thing ever, but it's only for this month. We've also had a change up in our days off slightly in that I had Tuesdays and Thursdays off, and Dave had Wednesdays and Thursdays. And somehow my Tuesdays off, in which I had always hoped and planned to spend all day at a park reading in the sun, were always rainy. :(

The weather has been a bit cloudy and rainy lately. I swear we had more clear sunny days in winter. It's starting to get hot but muggy and the sky is overcast. We had a big thunderstorm the other day, and a huge downpour of rain the day after. The streets were totally flooded.

But the past two days were sunny and warm and so we decided to venture out again. Firstly, the zoo is set in a huge park called Shuishang. It has an amusement park with roller coasters and a giant ferris wheel, as well as large sprawling lakes, pagodas, and bridges. It's very beautiful and free so we will definitely be coming back just to have a picnic or some reading time. The zoo cost 20 yuan, but for an extra 10 you get access to the monkey area, reptile building, herbivore garden, and birds area. We were glad we did since the monkey area was the highlight of the trip. It is a big grassy place with tall rock structures for them to climb, with a swingset and play area as well. There are no cages or fences though, and you can walk through a pathway where the monkeys freely run across. There is also a seating area where you can sit and the men who works there entices the monkeys to come close. Dave had one sit next to him, and one tried climbing the pole next to me then pulled at my hair. As we were watching the one sitting next to Dave, another came up and quickly stole the water bottle we had set down at our feet, and we are thinking that this was a plot hatched between the two. ;) You can pay to feed them slices of corn on the cob and things they like to eat, and they will jump for the food or even take it from your hand. It was such a cool experience and we will definitely do it again. We think that the herbivore and possibly bird areas will also have a similar structure in that you can walk around them and interact with the animals.

We didn't get to see all of the animals they had there either so we will definitely be back for the summer. There weren't many people there today and we're kind of interested in seeing it when it's packed.

We have Memorial Day coming up and will hopefully have a 3 day weekend. If we can, we will hopefully make the trek up to the Great Wall. I have been trying to research other places we should visit while in China, and Heaven's Gate mountain is another place we'd love to go to. We also heard that Shanghai is beautiful. We are trying to make a list of things we need to see while we're here. :)