One day we went to the zoo...

At least once a week, Salem asks me to read this book to him.

Danny and his Dino friend wander all around the city. During their day together they visit the zoo. But at the zoo,

"Everybody came running to see the dinosaur. Nobody stayed to see the lions...Nobody stayed to see the elephants...Nobody stayed to see the monkeys...And nobody stayed to see the seals, giraffes, or hippos either."


Then the zookeeper kicks them out of the zoo because no one was watching the animals.

Today, I identified with Danny and his Dinosaur.

We have a pretty great little zoo here so we took advantage of one of the first pretty spring days and headed out to enjoy the sunshine. Our plan seemed perfect. It was a Sunday, but school was still going on because of some different holiday rotation this week.
Ahhhhh...a nice, peaceful, zoo. A seriously absurd thought in a city of 6 million people.
None the less, our hopes were set high.



As we pulled up to the front gate, a sea of turquoise stretched out before us.



Yes, apparently every elementary school within 374 miles decided to take a field trip to the zoo that day.

We forged on. Pressing past the crowd. Which was hard work as every 4th grade student was determined to practice their best English "Hello!" with us as we walked past.

As our Foreign Novelty wore off, the students turned their attention toward the rickety carnival rides, giving us opportunity to make our escape toward the back of the zoo. The zebra and giraffe exhibit.



Two things about this picture:
1. What you don't see pictured are the 7 university aged girls snapping pictures with their cell phones of Brandon and the kids. This is why I may never have another picture with my kids looking toward my camera. With 8 cameras pointed at them at almost any given moment while in public, they get fairly confused about which way to look.
2.  Chinese people are starting to get smart about their signs. We can occasionally play the dumb foreigner card and say, "But I don't understand!", when they point to the sign that tells people not to sit on the rock. Now, they're including pictures. Apparently, we were still trying to play the dumb foreigner card for this picture. There goes the foreigners, setting a bad example for the rest of society.

This next picture is where I identified most strongly with Danny and his Dinosaur. We were standing along this fence watching some enormous reindeer...truly they were gorgeous. And when I looked to my right and left, I noticed we were the only ones watching the reindeer. Everyone else was watching us.



"No body stayed to see the reindeer..."

As if we weren't drawing enough attention, we decided to throw ourselves up on top of camels and draw an even larger crowd.





That picture makes me laugh because there's not a single soul in it beside me, Salem, and Mr. Camel. And that's exactly the opposite of how that day went.

As we walked away from the camels, so did the crowd.

"And no body stayed to see the camels..."

We didn't get the boot out of the zoo fortunately,

"but we did have a wonderful day!"