Hangzhou (day 2)

      We began day two of my fabulous adventure in Hangzhou by going to the catholic church. I wanted to go to the English mass, but we found out it is held every Saturday night, so we just went to the Chinese one. I am beginning to feel that Chinese preists really like to talk. This priest's homily lasted at least an hour, and I feel like the mass was going to be at least two hours. Also, I didn't really understand what they were saying, so I told Hui it would be alright if we left.
      We ate at a wonderful restaurant that mainly served a type of dumpling called 水饺(shui jiao). This is a type of dumpling that has a little bit of soup inside, and it translates directly as water dumpling. At that restaurant I also ate 汤圆(tang yuan) for the first time. 汤圆is also a sort of dumpling filled with a type of black soybean paste, which I think tastes reminiscent of peanut butter. After that experience of eating 汤圆, I went back to Haining and bought tons of frozen ones to eat for breakfast. These days it is one of my favorite things to eat.

 After breakfast we went to the Hangzhou zoo. In China zoos are more for children, but I love going to the zoo no matter where I am. The zoo we went to was nearby west lake, and it was on a mountain, so there was quite a bit of walking. I saw many things at this zoo that I had never seen before, and zoo stories are some of the best stories in my opinion.

      while before this trip I bought a small flying llama for my sister, which she named Stan, and I decided I was going to take this llama around and take pictures of him in different places in China. Stan very much enjoyed his time at the zoo. He liked talking with his cousins, the alpacas.
      Hui and I found a very lazy kangaroo. I didn't take a picture of it, but he was feeling very hot, so he was just lying there in the sun. Then suddenly he started to get up, but he just laid back down and went back to sleep.

 In the picture to the left you can see two mandarin ducks. Hui explained to me that they are a very special kind of duck that mates for life, and that the zoo needs to have two. If one of them dies, the other will soon die as well. These ducks are important in Chinese culture, and images of them can be seen at Chinese weddings as a symbol of marital bliss and fidelity to your spouse.



My first time to see a white peacock

Monkeys! The Hangzhou zoo has a lot of monkeys, including a few rare species of monkey. It was my first time to see a Capuchin monkey, which I heard about from the movie, Night at the Museum. If you were wondering, these monkeys were actually a lot bigger than Dexter.

The Hangzhou zoo had one other animal I had never seen before, and that I had always wanted to see my whole life. That was the majestic, beautiful, and fluffy PANDA! I was so excited to see the pandas. They were both sleeping, but it was still worth it. I saw one of their ears twitch, and I was satisfied. They were so fuzzy and adorable, I just wanted to jump through the glass and give them a big hug. Pandas are awesome! I was happy just to gaze at their sleeping greatness.

I know I mentioned a lot of firsts, but I am in China, so it is to be expected. To my knowledge, this was also my first time to see an Aian elephant, and hear an elephant make a really loud sound (what do you call that sound?). They were quite a bit smaller than the African elephants I saw in the past, and their tusks were crossing eachother. I thought that was pretty interesting.
      The elephants were my last first time seeing animal, but I can't wait for the day when I travel to a different Chinese zoo and find a sun bear, which is another animal I have always wanted to see.

The last two animals we saw were the tigers and the leopard. There were two tigers, and their enclosure was probably the coolest of all of the animals I saw. Based on my picture here, it almost looks like I just saw them sitting their in the wild. I also learned the Chinese word for leopard from going to this zoo. It's 豹子(baozi), and that's different from the steam bun! If someone serves you 豹子 at a restaurant just be aware that you are not getting steam buns (not that Chinese people actually eat leopards or anything like that), that's 包子(baozi), not 豹子。I know, I am not funny, but I still try.

      The zoo in Hangzhou was really fun! It tired me out a lot more than the zoo in Indianapolis, but it was still worth it! A zoo on a mountain has many stairs, and I climbed them all. Exhausted, I headed back to Haining to prepare for school the next day.