Day 6 - Monkey Park 8/24/11

Today we got to go to the government store to buy some souvenir items. There were all kinds of pretty art works that were particular to this province. Trish was enjoying shopping, but Jacob didn’t. There was a very different system for paying for things. There were little stations throughout the store where you took the items from that section and they wrote up little tickets for them. Then you go to the cashier and pay. And then you have to go back to each station show them the ticket stamped paid and pick up your items. After we were done there we went to visit a popular local tourist spot called the monkey park located just outside of the city. There was a lake and river on the way to the park which was kind of a resort area. There were people fishing and you could rent paddle boats to use on the lake. The monkey park was actually up the mountain by the lake. There were three ways to go up the mountain, hiking up several steep trails or the road, by monorail, or by driving. We drove most of the way up and then we got out and walked the rest of the way to the top. Jacob walked part of the way but he got tired so we had to carry him most of the way. That was a little tiring for us. All along the road and in the forest were the monkeys, big ones, small ones, and baby ones. They were pretty cool and pretty funny. Of course they were looking for handouts from the people and we saw one run up and steal a bottle of water out of a guy’s hand. At the top of the mountain was an 800 year old Buddhist temple. We took a tour of the temple and learned a little bit about its history. Jacob had to use the bathroom which was a fun experience for Trish!
When we got back to the hotel our guide Michael took me to a large supermarket about 8 blocks away to get some more milk and other things for Jacob. We had to cross a real busy street to get there dodging the cars as we went. It was located next to a KFC and was inside an indoor mall type place. I believe it was about 3 floors and was much like a Wal-Mart as it had everything including electronics and appliances. We stopped at the KFC and had that for lunch/dinner again. We just pretty much chilled out in the hotel room the rest of the day. We were able to Skype with Ellie a couple of times today which was good. The hotel staff gave us a piece of paper this afternoon that said they would have the water shut off from 4pm to 7pm tomorrow. That should be interesting. Jacob cracked us up several times with the silly things he did. He managed to find my cell phone and was pretending to talk on it. He also managed to figure out how to turn it on too. He had a few temper tantrums too. He is going to require a lot of energy! Hopefully he will go to sleep quickly tonight. He is laying next to Mommy right now with his stuffed lion whom he covered up so he could go to sleep too. Tomorrow we are going to take a cab to see Jacob’s finding place.