Day 9 - Saturday

Well today was my 30th Birthday - woke up not knowing what what is in store as today was all dependent upon the weather. First surprise was the apartment had banners up wishing me happy birthday - these were in English and Chinese - well we hope the chinese ones said Happy Birthday!! Then it was time for cards and pressies!! ;0D

After the obligatory birthday proceeding were out the way and I spent the usual 45mins getting myself ready to face the outside world - Although today I allowed a little more time to check for any extra 30th B'day wrinkleage!!

Time for the todays trip - If it was raining it would be a day at the museums, if it was dry then it would be a surprise to me where we would be going - It wasn't raining so I had no idea what we were doing - and those who know me know how much I don't like not knowing what was going on!?

We ended up at Shangai Wild Animal Park other than being cold we were all looking forward to seeing the animals - especailly the Lions and Tigers and Panda Bears.

We started off with the bus tour around the carniverous animal section of the park - this can best be described as a Benny Hill type bus tour where we sped around the park - only stopping for the occasional sight of one of the animals by the side of the bus - it was great fun and nice to not the one's on show for a change!!









After the whistle-stop bus trip we decided to grab some Birthday lunch in one of the 3 restaurants in the park, after sitting down they laid a cling film tablecoth on the table, we scanned the menu stood up and exited not feeling hungry anymore - other than rice there was nothing that taking our fancy!




We then tried out the fast food joint and the choice was chicken drumstick burger or chicken wings - this would of been ok if the chicken in question wasn't deforsting on the tea urn.... we didn't fancy food poisoning so left rather sharpish...after looking at the other eateries we settled for a snack stop of, Soupy noodles, Crips and Galaxy chocolate!!

It was then time to venture around the rest of the park - where the animals looked worse than we felt - the big animals were kept in tiny pens with nothing to amuse themselves with and the smaller animals had more space than they knew what to do with but spent all their time scavenging for food off the Chinse visitors that obviously couldn't read the no-feeding signs and were throwing in crisps, nuts and rice crackers - the ape was even been thrown sweets still in there wrappers!!

Some escapees - I'll you decide who I'm talking about!!?






After what was an entertaining morning it was time to head back to get ready for the evening out.

Not before being surprised once more with a Birthday Cake - Sweet things aren't the norm in China so this was a surprise. it was a gorgeous coffee and chocolate creation.. mmm!! Cake...






The night started of rather sedate with a gorgeous meal at Cafe Le Monde a resturant with authentic New Orleans cuisine, after feeding it was time for drinking - we hit Malones where the live music of house band 'Jagged Edge' provided us with plenty of entertainment to keep us wanting more cocktails - that is until I got called up on stage to sing Happy Birthday to myself in front of a crowd full of people - well I say sing Happy Birthday all I had to say were the words "to me" the band and crowd sung the rest (luckily I don't have pics of this)

All in all it was another great day and a Birthday I could never forget........