Discoveryland!

Today we went to Discoveryland in the Jinshitan (Golden Pebble Beach) area where we live. It is kind of a Disneyland knock-off - complete with a "Main Street of America" where they have a "Made in Dalian Store" (for real). But since it IS so close, and there really are not any public parks for kids around here, we decided to get season passes for me and the girls. As luck would have it, anyone under 1 meter (~39.37 inches) is FREE, and they are having a special on season passes for adults right now (not sure how long that will last, they just opened April 1, so it is a promo deal). The pass for me was only 360 RMB, which is like $51 bucks. A one-time pass is 170 RMB, so I only have to go 3 times to make it worth it. And it is nice because I can take the kids for a few hours in the morning - come home for lunch/nap and not feel like we didn't get our money's worth. Plus, it is pretty empty right now before the tourist season starts, so we get to do everything without too many people begging for photographs and staring at us. Oh, and one more thing about this terrific place - they POWER WASH the ground, so it is very clean - much different than most places in China.

The most ironic thing to me is that even in Portland, I never got season passes to things. Friends have passes to the zoo, Children's Museum, OMSI, etc - which are all great - but since I was always working during the weekdays, I never felt they were worth getting for our family. It took coming to China to get me over that - I'm totally stoked about Discoveryland! And once Alex and I get an ayi who can babysit, we may go at night a few times and ride the fun roller coasters - yippee!!!

One kind of weird thing is that while many people took our pictures (one guy had the manners to actually ask, and I said "I don't know...." so he did not take any photos, which was nice for a change), and we had the requisite people coming to peer at the kids and touch their hands and faces - one lady actually PICKED Lucia up at the carousel line! I was standing with Magdalena not 5 feet away and Lucia went running to the line with the other mothers. Some random Chinese lady held her arms out to Lucia (I need to talk to her about going to strangers) - and when Lucia got close, she just scooped her up and was about to walk on the ride with her! I raced over and demanded my child back - and her companions started to laugh. I think she was actually upset about it! I could not believe it - I mean touching, staring, giggling, and talking to us are one thing, but actually physically picking up my kid and trying to walk onto the ride with her is quite another. Mom - don't freak out, she wasn't going to kidnap her - one of the other mothers said this happened to her at IKEA once too. They just love kids here, and it's like "it takes a village" to raise them - everyone seems to think they are fair game. I'm sure I'll have much more to discuss on this subject later, but for now this American mama is NOT kosher with random strangers picking up my kids.

Here are some photos of our day. More on Facebook - yes, I caved and got an account finally. :-)
Lucia was kind of scared of Discoveryland's answer to Minnie Mouse:

From Blog All

She LOVED the fountain in the main entrance, though!

From Blog All

Here is the panoramic view of Discoveryland in video:

Two other Intel wife/mommies (new friends!) with young boys came with us, and Lucia had a blast playing with them. Here is one little guy on the train with Lucia:

From Blog All

Magdalena slept much of the time in the double stroller (non-sequitor: I had pumped extra milk to bring for her later, and forgot the nipple!! I tried to feed it to her like a cup, but eventually gave up and just nursed with my Hooter Hider. Thank goodness for sparse crowds...!):

From Blog All

Lucia on the indoor carousel in "Loonie Land" or whatever - it was a big car shaped room with lots of fun things inside like the carousel, a foam-ball rope tent, an indoor slide/jungle gym thing, and lots of little cars to ride on - but was VERY cold and slightly dark inside! I'd say good for a rainy day, but bundle up!:

From Blog All

Here is Lucia and the other little boy in a car:

From Blog All

I think we'll be going hopefully once a week - I plan to try and go to Discoveryland on Tuesdays when the new ayi comes to clean. See later post on ayis...