Day 5 - Qianling Park in Guiyang

Today found us touring one of the famed sites in Guiyang - Qianling Park - also known as the Monkey park, and for good reason. In most major cities in China, you are unlikely to see a monkey walking about unless you go to a zoo. Here... there were easily 500+ monkeys roaming around. At one point, we got out of the car and started walking up the road where all of the monkeys were. One thing I noticed were the workers in the park who were feeding the monkeys. They wore dark blue coats with a shoulder bag full of food... at several points during the feedings, the workers would get "mobbed" by the monkeys - and then once the food had left the bag - generally a fight would ensue with other monkeys for the food.

All that said, we were standing in the midst of all the chaos... which led me to put Ashlyn on my shoulders so that she would be up away from them. Mia, on the other hand, was probably more afraid of being on my shoulders than being in the middle of a monkey fight. Oh well... I still have some work with this girl ;)

Afterwards, we continued up the road to the top of the mountain where a 300 year old Buddhist temple was built. Now, THAT was impressive!! Even though we're Christians and obviously do not believe in the same way - it was just so cool to actually experience being in a Buddhist temple where people were burning incense... at one point, even one of the monks there offered our girls 2 apples they had sitting nearby. Mia ate both! :)

Then, once we had gotten our experience fill - we went back into the city for lunch at an American owned coffeehouse. Now, we didn't get to speak with the Americans there, but there was nice British guy from Reading there. I mentioned to him that I know exactly where Reading was since my professor back in college was from there. Anyways - just a note to anyone following in our footsteps in adopting from Guizhou - this place is great! We got a few panini sandwiches with soup and a slice of cheesecake for the girls. Even the coffee was good too! :)

Lastly today, we walked over and experienced a Chinese Wal-Mart. Let me just say that it's just.... slightly... different.



Ashlyn and Mia JinGuo




Running around having fun at the park





Worker getting mobbed by the monkeys in the park





Entrance to the Buddhist temple at the top of the mountain





A minority group wanted to have their photos taken with an American family

 


So... apparently, this was the most frightening part of Mia's day - not the mad monkeys - but being on the tall BaBa's shoulders




Walmart rice bins




Skinned rabbits and some sort of dark chicken (I think?)