China - Day 8 (Zoo and Social Club)

On Sunday, we woke up and went to the Chongqing Zoo. The highlight there is of course the Panda Bears and they say that you need to get there early in order to see them in action (because they are quite lazy creatures and sleep all afternoon :-)). So we got there when it opened. The animals were of course great, but for me it was really so fun to watch the people. We discovered that the traditional dress is "highheels" for all of the Moms and "princess - flowly dresses" for the girls. It was almost 100% consistent :-) Living in Europe, I always love the little differences in the normal ways of life and in China of course, the differences were even more magnified! We had a nice morning at the Zoo and then went back to our apartment to meet with friends of the man that we rented the apartment from. They have a social type group and each week they have a different "theme". This time we were invited to talk about differences in America, Germany, and China. Most of the people spoke a little bit of English (because they had all gone to University) and it was so fascinating being able to talk openly about differences. The big conversation was about Finaces and how you manage finances - currently and also saving for retirement - again so interesting. I learned so much about China and we discovered many pros and cons to both Countries with regard to finances. We then went out to dinner with our host and that was super enjoyable (and educational) too!

The entrance to the zoo..

It was really comical to see all of the photo requests at the zoo... 

These girls were hanging out with each other - they totally looked to be Mia's age ....

In the morning all of the old people were in the Zoo doing their morning exercises...

it was so neat to see...

Be careful of the fierce beasts :-)

White tigers...

More exercisers (this was not a show or anything - just real life :-))

We saw so much of this and it touched my heart - Grandparents with their grandchildren (there were so many little girls too - we saw so many more girls than boys). They are definitely loved!!!

More dancing...

So many of the girls had features similar to Mia - little lips and beautiful large cheek bones...

More paparazzi requests - so funny (I think Bailey felt like a rock star :-))

Definitely a loved little princess...

More grandparents with grandchildren... Many parents have to go away to work in China, so often the Grandparents are responsible for the kids...

This was a first for us - you could pay $2 and you got a big tray of food to feed the Hippopotamus

They loved it!!!

Just a few Gold fish in the pond :-)

And it was the hottest day of the year so far, yet still all of the Women had on heels - so funny!

And the little girls were all dressed up!

And the pandas got their leaves :-) So cute! We learned from someone we met on the trip that apparently there are several zoos in Chongqing and all of them have Pandas. It would have been neat to see what one of the smaller zoos was like...

And such an interesting conversation with locals - so glad to have learned more about their system...

So fun to meet new people from different cultures!!