Day 8

Morning:

This morning went fast! We ate breakfast and were heading back to the Chinese International Health Clinic by 9:30. We were in and out of there in less than 5 minutes. Uncle Jack jumped the line with everyone again. J

Next we headed to the Guangzhou Zoo. It was chilly out today, low 70’s, so Uncle Jack made sure Camellia was bundled up.

 

My boys would have loved this zoo. The first animals you see are different types and sizes of deer!

 

 

We walked around and found some giraffes that Camellia really liked. She seemed to like the bigger animals, as it was easy to point out and view them up close.

Then we made it to the pandas! They were a little hard to photograph today, as they pretty much stayed inside their exhibit instead of coming out, but we got to see them interact with the zoo keeper and got some good video. 

 

Camellia especially liked feeding the black swan her Cheerios. At the lion exhibit I finally got her to take a decent photo with Uncle Jack!

 

We finished the zoo with a tour through the bird sanctuary and headed home for lunch. Speaking of which, have I said this girl likes noodles? She ate this entire bowl of noodles in our room. I’ve already challenged Nicki with finding these back home. Very much like Raman noodles.

 

 

Afternoon:

Whenever we go anywhere, Camellia is silent and will not talk to anybody. She only motions to me but never speaks. However, when we are alone, Camellia talks to me all the time. She primarily says one word over and over, and I can’t understand what it is. Phonetically it sounds like “Thai She.” I always make a game out of it and tell her no and she’s Chinese not Thai. J Today she kept saying it over and over. I finally told her, "Honey, I don’t understand what you are saying." She pointed at her Kai Lan DVD. Then it dawned on me. She’s saying “xi shi,” which is Chinese for happy (the Kai Lan DVD has a Chinese song in it where they sing happy over and over)! I looked at her and repeated, "Xi Shi! Happy!" She clapped her hands and got a huge smile on her face. So all this time when we are alone playing in the room she’s telling me she’s happy! What an amazing little girl she is!

Update, I weighed her today, and she’s up almost 2 pounds from when I got her just a week ago today! She was 11.4 kg (25.1 lbs) when I got her, and today she is 12.1 or 26.67 lbs! No wonder she’s xi shi. She’s eating good with her Ba Ba! After her nap we are going to head out to pick up a few items. We need milk (trick worked for nap too), and I want to get some candy to take to the orphanage for tomorrow. Jack tells me it is about a 1.5 hour drive to get there, so we will be leaving at 9:00.

Evening:

This evening went really well. We met with the Muntz family again for dinner. We went out for pizza and then stopped at the McDonalds for ice cream! Camellia’s first taste of ice cream and she loved it! She was full from dinner and didn’t finish it. Unfortunately, she didn’t understand that you can’t just keep ice cream until later, as it melts. So we will just have to come back tomorrow!

 

Speaking of tomorrow, I’m a little nervous for Camellia, as tomorrow we head to the orphanage where she came from so I can see it and get some pictures. We are only going to stay a few minutes or less if she becomes scared or doesn’t do well. So ice cream may be a good end to tomorrow’s events. Besides, our pharmacist Jill recommended we give her ice cream since PediaSure was so expensive… SOLD!