Thursday, August 02, 2007

Who Needs Hong Kong Disneyland?

We are on our own for most of the day today so we had breakfast late then went out for a walk. The staring here is REALLY intense! Tina and I are quite amused as we speculate what's going on in their heads. Foreign adoption is not commonly known about within mainland China. I think when we're with Bob people assume he is Kai's father, Tina is Bob's wife and I'm the brother-in-law, Uncle Scott. When it's just Tina, me and Kai the looks we get make it appear that there is no reasonable explanation for what they are seeing.
So anyway, we headed out away from the hotel in hopes of finding a park. We only had to go a few large city blocks before we found a really sweet deal. There was a beautiful little park with a man-made lake with islands and bridges where they were renting paddle-boats.

photobucket.com

This sounded like a great idea to Kai. You know, paddle-boats look much more serene then they really are.

photobucket.com

I wish I could tell you that the well-maintained state-of-the-art engineering behind the propulsion systems on these ones made them a joy to peddle, but all I can really say is I'll be feeling that ride tomorrow.
There was also a set of carnival type rides there as well, which Kai absolutely loves, so we let him pick one out to ride.

But not this one.

photobucket.com

or this one.
photobucket.com
He settled on this one, but didn't really understand the point of the ride.

photobucket.com

Until the kindly ride operator hopped on his car in motion and explained how the guns worked.

photobucket.com
These are targets that you shoot to make them animate!

photobucket.com
Soon Kai was joyfully shooting up the animals like a pro!

photobucket.com
This ride went on for about 15 minutes or more. At one point two older boys came along who were itching to ride spaceships and shoot at animals too, so one of the workers used brute force to stop the cars and let them on. After a while the operators moved around behind the control booth like they were going to end the ride, but they were only taking a smoke break. When some other kids came along and wanted on they stopped it again, and this time I stepped in to remove Kai. Even though the deal was "only one ride" it cost us this balloon to get out of the park and back to the hotel without a tantrum.
photobucket.com

ORIGINAL COMMENTS LINK

No comments: