Last Day in China!

Kristy surprised us this morning by deciding that she wanted to feed herself with a spoon. We aren't sure if this is a first time or not.
Our guide took us to the Guangzhou Zoo this morning. This zoo is the third largest zoo in China. I think we were just as much a curiosity as some of the animals. We saw a lot of animals from China, southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and North America. We saw the biggest chimpanzee I had ever seen. Most of the enclosures were the old style concrete and bars. The giant panda's cage was also concrete and bars. They had two pandas both were a sleep and only one was in view. The one in view was in a dark cage and too far for a decent picture, very disappointing. They even had some dogs on display (hmm). There was one strange exhibit where handlers were involved. The exhibit had parrots, a red panda, a chained up monkey, a dalmatian, a chimpanzee, and a very large python. When a number of people gathered they did a really disturbing exhibition. They uncovered the python that was on a picnic table and then brought the chimp to the table and forced it to antagonize the python. The python coiled up and hissed the first time and than the chimp did not want to continue with the exhibition. He kept on being pulled over to the table and told to either bang the table or whip at the python with a towel. One time when he really resisted the handler whipped him with a towel. We stood there with our mouths open not believing what we were seeing but the Chinese people were laughing at the entire exhibition. That was not the end of it either. The handler than told the chimp to get a stick and he started swinging it at the chained dalmatian. The dalmatian snarled and growled at it. We couldn't believe what we were seeing. Kelly wanted to get a souvenir at the gift shop but decided not to out of protest. We looked around a little longer and than left.
We are spending the afternoon finishing last minute stuff and packing up to come home so this will be our last blog from China. We have enjoyed our time here and have learned a lot of culture from Kristy's home country. We hope to bring her back here some day so that she will be able to see where she came from. The pictures today are from the Guangzhou Zoo and Kristy at breakfast this morning. The red colored animal is a red panda. We leave early Friday morning for Hong Kong and have an 8 hour layover (ugh). We leave from Hong Kong at 5:20 pm for a 13.5 hour flight to Chicago. We will spend Friday night in Chicago and get into Columbia at around 4:45 pm Saturday.