More pictures from today.

This system is tricky on my phone so excuse any of my weird formatting issues. It looks on this end that the rest of the pictures I tried to add to today’s post didn’t add so here they are again. Well never mind- now it looks like they posted here and twice on the other page. At least my kid and the elephants are both cute cause now I can’t get this deleted!

Kissing giraffes and other dirty things.

After a long trip we arrived in Nairobi at dawn this morning. Coyle walked off the plane and started asking everyone where the trees were. Apparently all of Africa is full of trees. I guess mommy had better work on his geography skills. There were animal statues all around the airport so Coyle thought  we should just live in the airport but I convinced him there was even more to see if we left. This is Coyle’s 4th continent and I will never get over watching his face as he tries to understand a place so different from home.

This morning we had the opportunity to see two amazing animal sanctuaries that are doing really good work. First we visited the giraffe center which is working on breeding the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe as well as conservation education. Coyle has been dying to see giraffes so he was so excited. Somehow I brought up months ago about a story I saw of someone kissing a giraffe. So anyway this became a thing until Coyle really thought I wanted a kiss from a giraffe. Well I was up for it till I learned it was not just putting your head next to a giraffe and snapping a picture. Oh no. It is way more involved than that. You have to put a pellet of their food between your lips and let them take it out 🤢But this morning I started to think - well when in Kenya... So yup. You guessed it. I kissed a giraffe and there is photographic evidence.

 I’m pretty sure neither one of us was impressed by that experience!  After all that Coyle was also unimpressed and he just keeps saying “mommy that was giraffe food - you’re not a giraffe, why’d you put it in your mouth?”

The second place we visited was the Sheldrick elephant and rhino orphanage. They rescue orphaned elephants and rhinos throughout Kenya. They currently have 15 young elephants that they are working to rehabilitate and return to the wild. For one hour a day the orphanage is open to the public to watch a feeding and learn a little bit about the projects they have around the country. We saw 13 elephants-many of who were still under 2 years old and were being bottle fed. Apparently after decades of research they found the best food for baby elephants is human baby formula but these big guys are fed every 3 hours around the clock and drink about 24 liters of formula a day - and I thought Coyle was an expensive baby!

What was incredibly sad was that most of these elephants were orphaned due to human interactions - poaching, mining (several were rescued from mine shafts or wells) and drought caused by over farming. The trust does a lot of work with education and political advocacy in the hopes of saving these elephants. The reintegration process takes years and years as they have to move the elephants out of the nursery to a game range outside the city and work with them until they are accepted into a new elephant family. Interestingly they have decided not to microchip them or track the
 In any way once they are released into the wild because they don’t want to interfere with their natural life. However they said that it’s true that an elephant never forgets and every year they have formerly orphaned female elephants bringing their babies to the game range (which borders on the national park area where they are released) to show them off to the staff who took care of them when they were young.
During the lecture Coyle was right in there taking pictures like the tourist he is!  We also learned that a baby elephants two favorite things to do are eat and play in the dirt. Apparently Coyle is secretly a baby elephant. He is loving the red Kenyan soil and would have played in it all afternoon if I let him!

The Paris airport

Well we made it to Paris. Coyle slept most of the flight and I watched bad movies. We have a long layover here but we’re making the most of it. It’s pouring out so that makes me feel better about our decision not to try and make a quick trip to the Eiffel Tower even though Coyle asked if we could go as soon as I told him we were flying through France.
According to Coyle the best things we saw today were a dog wearing a diaper and French garbage cans. He was also very excited that when he barfed on the plane he got it all in the bag!  Unfortunately Coyle was not blessed with a strong stomach - luckily it doesn’t bother him at all.
Now he’s playing happily in a play area with some young French girls. I wonder if any of them want to get married in the next few weeks!
Well

In a few hours we’ll be off to Nairobi and we’ll get there early Wednesday morning and hopefully start seeing the sights right away. Unfortunately Coyle is convinced that we are going to the beach in Africa and no matter how much I’ve explained Kenyan geography to him there’s no convincing him so he may be mighty disappointed. (We didn’t have the time or budget to fly to the coast on this trip)

We’re gonna go go go go on an adventure

Coyle, Mr. Snuggles, Sharky and I are ready for our summer adventure. Right now we’re people watching in JFK waiting for our first flight. There’s currently an amber alert in Brooklyn so every phone in the airport just started buzzing at the same time. That’s not at all terrifying!  

So where are we going?  Coyle’s bucket list for the summer was to go to the beach, Canada, Africa (he preferred Madagascar) and to go to outer space. We’re not going to Madagascar but we are going to Africa to see elephants, giraffes, zebras and monkeys. More specifically (since I yell at my 9th graders that Africa is a continent not a country and now find myself yelling the same thing at my 4 year old) we are going to Kenya. We’re flying out tonight to Paris then we have a long layover in the airport. It’s one of those ones that is just too short to go out and explore but long enough to be annoying. I have already staked out the play areas in the airport to check out. Then we will fly from Paris to Nairobi. I’m most excited about the culture and Coyle is most excited for the animals so we’ve tried to plan a trip that covers both. We’ll try to update our

Blog as much as possible as we go. We’re both so excited about our adventure. 

You must be very brave...or crazy!

3 Continents.

6 Flights.

19,000 + Miles.

1 Three year old.

The reactions I got most when I told people about my trip where...

- You must be very brave

- You must be crazy

- He'll never remember it so why are you spending all of this money.

Despite all of this I made the decision to take my 3 year old (with severe food allergies) to Asia.  Was it easy?  No, not a chance.  I mean, he's 3 and he's going to be 3 wherever he goes.  I'm sure we had at least one melt down at every important Chinese landmarks!

At the top of the Temple of Heaven and not coming down!

Staging a protest at Tiananmen Square!

Not taking another picture on the Great Wall!

Having a moment in the minority village

Not quite sure about Goofy!

Not happy about an emergency evacuation "I forgot to take my jammies off and I have no shoes!"

 Probably the most challenging part of traveling to China with a three year old is that in China he doesn't look three.  We played with kids that looked his age that I was surprised to learn were six or seven years old.  Every time he had a temper tantrum I wanted to yell "he's three - this is what three year olds do!"

So what possessed me to drag my three year old almost 20,000 miles?  Well, I love what Pauline Frommer says 

                "My kids may not remember everywhere they've been, but they understand, in an elemental way, that their way of life is just one of many.  Perhaps, as importantly, they've learned that for all of the differences there are from culture to culture, there are just as many commonalities.  That in every culture parents love their children, hope for a better future, and work toward that future in whatever way they can.  I think my kids' travels make them more compassionate, smarter human beings"   https://www.frommers.com/slideshows/846674-exotic-but-kid-friendly-6-top-spots-for-family-vacations

The connections that Coyle made with people were amazing.  Despite the language barrier he was able to connect in ways that I as an adult have never been able to.  It was a special feeling to be able to watch that.  

Checking each other out

The international language of bubbles

Meeting the tourists at the Great Wall

Connecting across generations and cultures - a high five is the same in any language!

Making a new friend

So was it worth it? 
Absolutely!

I got to show Coyle some of my favorite places in the world and see those places through his eyes. And he got to see the Great Wall and pandas, things he has always been fascinated with.  We both pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zone.  He confidently explored unfamiliar places and tried new food and rides that he wasn't quite sure about at first. And me?  Well I, the least theme park person on the planet, went to Disneyland and had a blast!  It may have been different than my usual trips.  We went a lot slower, took a lot more breaks and stopped to check out every garbage can on three continents but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Most importantly, Coyle has caught the travel bug.  He has been playing airport constantly and in the last week he's asked me to take him to Egypt and Australia - He is definitely my kid.  I can't wait till our next adventure together.

Cross Bridge Rice Noodles

Fascinating Hong Kong garbage cans!

Look - Mickey has the same hat!

Dumbo ride!

Naptime at Disneyland!

He likes birds more than his mommy does!

Pandas

Mommy's little tourist!

The great compromise

The great compromise 

When I was pregnant with Coyle one of the first things people said to me was “you’ll have to give up your traveling and start going to Disney World instead”.  At the time I said “no way” but of course I now have a “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” obsessed kid which makes “no way” a little harder to say.  So here it is, our great compromise for this trip - Hong Kong Disneyland!  

We flew into Hong Kong on Wednesday and have spent the last few days in Disneyland. Coyle has been having a blast and so am I. This place is completely over the top. It’s a lot smaller than Walt Disney world which is really nice. We’re staying on the property (there are 3 hotels) and we ended up with a free upgrade to a suite which is just nuts. Coyle is obsessed with the fact that we have 2 bathrooms!  It’s certainly a different experience to be living large on a vacation. Yesterday we spent the whole day at the park. Coyle loved the tea cups, carousel and the boat ride (it’s a small world). I am still trying to get that ridiculous song out of my head. The hotel also has the chance to say goodnight to a character before bed so we’ve been able to see Mickey and Minnie in their pjs!  

This morning we were woken up early by the blaring alarm and announcements yelling that we had to evacuate the hotel. Carrying  Coyle downstairs from the 7th floor was not the way I planned to start the day!  He was very upset that he didn’t have shoes and “forgot to take his jammies off”. 

When we were let back in the hotel we did some early morning tai chi with Goofy before heading out to the park again for more rides. It’s been raining on and off our whole time here so we’re going to have some fun around the hotel this evening before heading out for our very long flights home tonight.