Our Local Carrefour, Shenyang Zoo and Happy City

We had a very busy day today and Ryan is sick again this evening so my post is a little late coming.  A busy day usually means lots of pictures and uploading can be a little slow.

Last evening after Tim got home from work I finally got a chance to check out our local Carrefour just up the street.  Inside there are several different stores and restaurants including KFC (which we haven't had yet and don't plan to).  It was here that I discovered Happy City but I will tell you about that later.

This particular Carrefour has two floors, the first being like a department store and the second a grocery store.  I spent a little too much time on the first floor finding all kinds of things that we needed so by the time I made it to the grocery part it was getting a little late.  I didn't want to keep our driver waiting too long on a Friday night so I tried to hurry but it can be so difficult buying food here.  The packaged stuff isn't too bad as you can pick out the Oreo cookies, juices, and snacks pretty easily.  The trouble comes when you want to find produce, meat or certain milk.  The vegetables that we are used to are not as common here and you have to remember to have everything in the produce section weighed right there before you go to the check out.  The meats I have found to look nothing like we have at home so I haven't purchased anything except boxed hamburgers.  You really need to have a lot of time to look and figure out what it is that you want.  I wanted stew meat but there wasn't anything resembling it so I bought nothing.  Then there is the milk and eggs.  All the eggs I saw were not refrigerated but Tim was told by someone at work that as long as they have never been, there is no need to keep them cold.  Who knew?  A lot of the milk is also not refrigerated but we have been able to zero in on one kind of package that is cold so I just keep buying that same one.  A couple of months before we left I went off dairy and started drinking soy milk.  They do have it here but apparently only at Metro so I need to go there and stock up sometime.  I also stopped eating most breads and am trying to find something I can tolerate.  I swear our driver must think we eat continuously with the number of trips we have made to various grocery stores, trying to find what we want.  Today we found another store in one of the other apartment complexes that is popular with expats.  This place has a lot of imported foods and it was here that we found Kraft Dinner.  Hooray, sort of.  I had gotten the kids off KD and canned foods before we left Canada so I didn't really want to get them back into it.  But, since they've only been eating Cheerios, toast and yogurt since we got to the apartment I thought they'd better have something different.  Hopefully we will soon find some more familiar foods and can start cooking proper meals again.

This morning we had our driver pick us up at nine and we headed out for the zoo.  It took a little while to get there and we saw a couple of interesting sites along the way.

This is a sort of shanty town - notice the satellite dishes.  Priorities!

This is the entrance to the zoo.



Once we got to the zoo our driver, Mr. You, wanted his picture taken with Tim.  This is the friendliest he has been.  I think we are making progress!

The first thing we saw at the zoo were the elephants.  They had just been let out and were very excited, trumpeting and running around.  Ryan was terrified and held on to me tight.

He did want to go on the merry-go-round so we took a ride.  The whole time he rode it a lady who worked there stood in front of him with her cell phone trying to get his picture.  After a few turns the kids weren't having any fun so I asked them to stop it, since we were the only ones on it.

I think our visit to the zoo was a little too early in the year as they didn't seem to have the giraffe or panda exhibits ready.  We did get to see the Lesser Panda which was still very cute.  A little girl who was also there looking was cuter!

They had a few different rides at this zoo and one was sort of like a roller coaster so, of course, Ryan couldn't resist watching.  They were just getting it running for the season I would say, because the three girls who were riding it were workers at the zoo.  The car they were in made it to the top, then got stuck.  A guy actually crawled up the structure and pushed the car to get them going again.

How's this for worker safety?

He's a little more than four feet up, shouldn't he be tied off?

He did manage to get them moving, only to have them get stuck again.  This time it was on a steeper incline and he had to push even harder to get them going.

Ryan watched the whole thing.  He didn't see this in Florida!



A few more pictures from the zoo:

What a gong show!

Waiting for apples!

Once we got back from the zoo and another grocery store, we headed out to show Tim the playground areas within the complex which we had found the previous few days while he was at work.  The kids played for a long time and were getting pretty tired so to make sure they were good and exhausted, we walked them up to Carrefour and Happy City.  This is an indoor playground that I believe has just opened recently.  It costs to get in to it but you can buy passes for so many days at a discounted price.  We will likely do this next time as the kids had a blast and played for an hour and a half.  It was so much fun to watch them and others thought so too.  One man couldn't get enough of Nicholas trying to climb onto a hanging ball that was spinning around.  He finally got it but we had some good laughs up until he did.

Finally!

To end the day I have a  really special picture.  Ladies, this one will make you appreciate living in Canada (those that do).  Gentlemen, it will make you appreciate the fact that you can pee standing up even more.  This squat toilet was at the zoo and was actually quite a nice one.  It was pretty clean and the stalls went all the way up.  Best of all, there was a door with a lock on it.

Enjoy your Saturday!