Tanggu Visit--St. Patrick's Day

I decided we would go to Hebin Park today in Tanggu.  Todd had never been there and Cameron hadn't been there since we first moved to China.  I took Mom and Dad there in October of 2011 and then I took my Mom and Aunt Sharon in April of 2012.  In 2012 it was completely tore up with construction. 

Mr. Xue dropped us off at the main entrance and I immediately thought the park looked much better.  We started walking.  There is a section of carnival type rides that weren't there before.  Next to that it it was still under construction but on the fence there was a water park with wave pool and big slides.  The sign says "Coming in 2013".  I think the date may be a little off.  There was nothing started.

This was the entrance to the Kid Land.

This is what is coming behind this banner.  I doubt it will ever look like this.

We made our way to the Tanggu Museum.  It was free.  We walked around inside.  There were two sections to explore.  The main thing Todd noticed was the growing mold on all the walls.  He figures it was because they had a green roof (Plants and grass on the roof) that they water and it runs down the walls.  It was pretty disgusting.  We did see a few interesting things in the museum so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Inside the museum.

A very old engine.

I'm not sure if they have a mold problem or not.

That is going to hurt Cameron.

We next ventured out onto the roof to see what was up there.  It was a bunch of dead weeds mostly.  We did however see our first bugs.  One of the bugs (we saw many of this kind) Todd thought looked like big ticks.  All the bugs were on the ground but I was getting creeped out and I started to feel like things were crawling on me.  Cameron was having the same feelings.  Back down and off through the park headed towards the zoo.

On the roof.

There were many new buildings and places to sit.  There was also work out equipment throughout the park that Cameron had to try out as we walked by them.  We made it to the zoo.  We paid 15 rmb (about $2.50) total to get in.  I felt the zoo looked worse than the last time but Cameron thought it looked a little better.  We started walking around.

Todd and I took a stroll through this forest.

Todd making his "wink,wink" face.

Our first stop was the monkeys.  There was a lot of trash in their pen.  Monkeys were doing some monkey business (if you know what I mean) which Cameron thought was funny.  Todd saw a monkey with a candy wrapper and then we saw the monkey give some of the chocolate bar to another monkey.  Too funny but sad for the monkeys that they eat whatever people throw in to them.  They looked much worse than the monkeys we saw at the Tianjin Zoo yesterday.

This baby jumped on the mom for a ride.

They changed the pens.  There use to be a couple big pens with a lot of animals together.  They now have multiple small pens all connected together with the animals grouped by species.  They didn't look so good.  We continued walking to the pens in the back.  Thee was a big dog in one of the pens.  Some Chinese guy was teasing him and making him bark and get wound up.  The Chinese guy and lady thought it was funny but we didn't.  It was mean. 

We walked out of the zoo and finished walking through the park.  Mr. Xue picked us up and we went to the I Love You Store.  Huge electronics store.  We didn't find anything we needed but it was great just checking things out.  Back to TEDA.

I made green cupcakes with green frosting for St. Patrick's Day.  WE shared them with Carrasco's and Hindman's.  This was the first time Betty Crocker made cupcakes inside ice cream cones.  Cameron and the Carrasco kids said they were good.  They sure smelled good.

Another Betty Crocker moment.

Todd grilled a bunch of food for us to eat all week.  Cameron played outside with Manuel and shot some hoops with Todd.  We watched a Batman movie and then went to bed.