Pizza, more monkeys, and swimming....

Guess who loves swimming???? If you know me, you know my intense aversion to wearing a bathing suit in public, so you probably guessed it was Junie! Yep, our second attempt at swimming was a big success...Here at the Garden Inn there is a pool outside on the fourth floor - there is a big pool, and around a corner, a smaller pool just for the little ones. We were the only ones at the pool, and I think that helped her comfort level; she was splashing around and jumping in within a few minutes. No other kids to distract her. She insisted on standing in the water that reached just above her top lip...then she would snort out any water that reached her nose! The only distraction was the intense scrutiny of the - lifeguard? Not sure if he was a lifeguard, or a just an attendant of some kind, but he watched us, either out of fear that the three of us would drown in the eighteen inches of water, or he just enjoyed the loud, American spectacle of us...

Earlier in the day we enjoyed a trip to the Guangzhou Zoo - billed as one of three main zoos in China it had a panda, which was a lot of fun to see! Junie enjoyed the zoo after her initial fear of the animals - I had the guide explain that the animals could not, in fact, get out to snack on her! The panda had a nice enclosure, and was kept cooler than we were (or any of the other animals, btw) by a misting roof and a surrounding of bamboo. Compared to larger zoos in the US, some of the animals did not have much room to move around, etc. There were lots of tigers - kept in traveling-circus size cages...not much room to move around - looked like they took turns in a slightly larger enclosure where they could pee and snarl within feet of the public. We also got to see the golden monkeys - really pretty, and I don't think you can see them outside of China as they are endangered. We didn't think anything could top the synchronized monkey swimming on tv the other day, but when the monkeys began enjoying a synchronized activity of another kind, we moved on...

Lunch today was nothing to write home about, but cheap : ) For dinner, we hit an Italian place, hoping for the best. It was FANTASTIC!! Turned out to be authentic, brick-oven pizza, great bruschetta, nice gelato. Well worth the walk! As with many places here, there was an abundance of staff - more than there were customers at the time. This often leads to the feeling of being watched intensely (as at the pool). It is a little freaky to be watched over so closely, but you do get good service that way! We also watched the Italian owner, in his tight, designer jeans and leather vest, as he lined up and berated the entire staff about something that he found "impossible". Never could quite figure out what he was so irate about; but it was funny to listen to his Italian-accented English being translated by a Chinese staff member and wonder whether or not she was properly translating what he was saying. As we left he was still rattling on ( a good ten minutes later) and I mouthed a silent "good luck" to the waitstaff, eliciting a few smiles.

That about wraps it up for the day : ) We are kind of on our own to entertain ouselves for the next few days. May ask the guide if there is anything else to check out around town, or we'll have some long days of swimming, hanging out at the hotel playroom, etc.