Sunburn in January!?

Today I went on another all day Chinese excursion: I went to the Kunming zoo with Mr. Pye and 2 Chinese ladies from the English teaching ministry. We left early and had a traditional Chinese breakfast on the way: noodles in soup eaten with chopsticks! It was actually pretty good, but very messy! The zoo was a bit outside the city in the mountains, so we had to take the bus for an hour to get there. Once we got out of the city, the view was so gorgeous- we kept climbing up into the mountains, half of it on dirt roads (which is an experience when you’re standing up holding onto a handle above you while trying your best not to fall down.) When we got there, the bus dropped us off at the bottom of a steep hill and we walked up to the zoo entrance. On our way up, we saw our bus drive right past up and park at the top of the hill. Very interesting.
I absolutely loved the zoo- the scenery was beautiful from the top of the mountain! Probably my favorite exhibit was the pandas- almost in their natural habitat. The tiger exhibit was a little out of my comfort zone. It was their feeding time and the zoo workers threw them live ducks to chase for their dinner! You could also buy raw meat to lower from a bamboo fishing pole down to the tigers. Although that was all quite exciting, my favorite part of the zoo was watching all the people: 2 different families we met wanted to take a picture of me with their son or daughter- just because I’m a foreigner. I was more than happy to agree: the kids are so adorable!
Definitely the most entertaining part of the day was reading all the signs written in “Chinglish.” There were some really good ones! For example, as we left the zoo, a sign exhorted us to “Take good care of your friends.” I also had some other exciting Chinese food experiences: for lunch we had hot dogs on a stick rolled in hot pepper, then for dessert we had red bean ice cream! The hot dog was ok, but I think beans should stay in Mexican food only.
It was really hot today in the sun and when we got back, I realized my face is sunburned- in January! A first for me!