Chimelong International Circus

From XiangJiang Safari Park, we took a shuttle bus to go to our next destination, Chimelong International Circus it is. Heard it is a good one, we don't want to miss it since we were there!

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We arrived there a bit early and were lucky enough to get some good seats to enjoy the show. Except for the limited VIP seats that charge extra RMB100 each, all of the other seats are charge a flat rate. Based on the first come first serve basis, no wonder many late comers are unhappy about the place they've get.

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Chimelong International Circus is the world's largest permanent circus, opened in year 2005. Since the circus's commencement, it has produced 3 successful and uniquely different shows including the 1st show The Galaxy , the 2nd show The Jurassic Moon , and the 3rd show The Forest Code.

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The current show has created many records, such as having the world’s biggest realistic stage, the world’s most luxurious circus, the circus with the most amount of performers and animals, and many more. Oh well, I haven't been to many circus before, so I'm not really sure about that.

Performances start each evening at 7:30pm, with the show lasting for 1.5 hours. During the holiday seasons, such as Spring Festival and Golden Weeks, Chimelong International Circus adds 2 extra shows during the day. Over 400 shows are performed annually. How productive !!

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But one thing for sure, they inject a huge investment to create the brilliant stage visual effects. The performances, stage, set, costume design and lighting are some of the best in the business. Its hi-tech flaming and lighting effects have successfully create a mysterious dream word.

The circus comprises of many international award winning acts including performers from America, Russia, Africa, Columbia, Kazakhstan and China. The horseman on the left hand side are the world’s most skilled horsemanship from Kazakhstan. Truly make my jaws dropped to see how good the man and the horse are in co-operation.



They even hired a world renowned fashion designer to design all of the costumes especially for this show. I salute for their professionalism.










These 3 beatiful figures are performing at the height of more than 10m from ground. Awesome !

the raining effect is very astonishing too. The whole audience were in a " wow" when it get started.

From time to time, different kinds of animal will take part in the show. For example, the pink flamigos in the glass enclosure over there had really garnish the show a lot.

Those stunts require deadly accuracy. They don't put on any safety strings so I guess they must be very very confident with what they are doing. And that's exactly the reason why their show is astonishing !





What a bound and what a catch! Have they have ever miss the target?





Animals show. As we saw from the zoo, black bears are highly intelligent aninals.

As if riding bicycles are not impressive enough, they can even roar a motorbike. A big applause!

This is the golden medal winner program of the World Circus Competition Flier from Russia.

The 4 man jump, skip, turn 360 deg in the fast revolving wheels while, odinary people can only do these on a flat ground. I never saw something quite like this, it's really one of the greatest show I have ever seen.

Although they do that every night, all year round, they enjoy the audiences' cheers as if they never get enough of it. Thank you very much for your greatest performance.

While they are busy setting up something for the next stunt, animals show will be slipped in.

Monkey show.

Well, this traditional fly-man show had become nothing too fasnicated after we watched the greater stunt before it.

Lastly, the clown show. They are not ordinary clown, but well trained divers. I think their standard is no less than the world class divers.

In the middle of all the silly dives, this clown suddenly came up to beg an audience to dive with them. A young man who sat right in front of us was pulled out. We suspect this young man is their pre-selected partner. This is because the young man wasn't watching the show at all. Instead, he was playing with his mobile phone the whole night. At first, we wonder why the heck he paid to come in if he is not interested? No we know.

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Anyway, we understand. Who want to get themself diving from high, and get wet from head to toe?

The show ended with all of the performers show up on the stage. One last trick, the minute we saw the cage in the middle was empty...

tatatata...a tiger was there in the cage now.

Good bye everyone. I hope to see you guys some time in the future. Stay cool !

With the largest circus stage in the world, the circus stadium can contain more than 8000 guests per show. The night we were there, it's 90% full house. I overheard a lady said she had watched the circus for 2 times, and it still impressed her a lot.

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To me, one of the outstanding parts of the show is its luxurious stage decorations. The stage is approximately 100 meters wide, 50 meters deep, and there are more than 11 levels of different settings. Decorated by different natural and artificial materials, the whole stage looks like a beautiful area inside the deep forest with trees, hills, streams, boats, animals, and all different kind of fairies. Besides the visual effects, the stage itself can make different movements to facilitate and cooperate with the design of the show, such as moving up and down, backward and forward, turning, and so on.

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The other amazing factor is the lighting of the whole stage. The stage is such a large area that numerous kinds of lighting equipment are necessary to create dramatic scenes. In order to make each lights work efficiently, all of the lighting equipment is pre-designed and controlled by a central computer to create different scenes, such as day time, night, or in any other different situations according to the development of the show.

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Now then, I've get addicted to the modern circus setting. In fact, I'm keeping my eyes on Cirque du Soleil, ZAIA in Venetian Macau. See if KS can get any good offer for us...

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XiangJiang Safari Park

On the 2nd day of Christmas, we all woke up early, in a total excitement state. Yippee, we are going to XiangJiang Safari Park !!

For the boys, they felt excited because zoo, be whatever zoo, has been their all time favourite.

For me, I felt excited because this is the zoo I wanted to visit ever since I have heard about it since 5 years ago. Heard it is real good, real cool. I want to see it to believe it.

Xiangjiang Safari Park (XSP) is the largest animal park in Asia. Characterized by grazing animals in natural settings, and self driving tour experiences, XSP is known as the best national animal park in China. In 2007, the park received the AAAAA rating, becoming one of the first of its kind in China, and remains the only AAAAA tourist resort and destination in Guangzhou.

XSP has over 20000 animals divided into 460 species including pandas from China, Koalas from Australia, Giant Anteater from Honduras, Polar Bears from Norway, Hippos from Sierra Leone. Truly an united nation family.

One good thing about XSP...the visitor can get real close up to the animals. These parrots, I can reach out to pat their head if I want. The bad thing...it's on your own risk if you want to get that close to them.

If you paid RMB10, they will put your selected parrot on your shoulder. You may kiss it and take some photos. But NO-THANKS.

Besides the relatively "loose safety measures", there is also one distinct characteristic about the zoo, the animals there are very active and responsive to the visitors. Precisely, it's very amazing to see they pose in front of the camera. More to see when you scroll down...

The sea turtles are living with the seals in the same pool. They are very big. How to describe the size...it's bigger than William, and probably heavier than KS, ok.

Malayan Tapir. This is the animal who scared William to hell when we took him to visit Singapore Safari Night Park about 2 years ago. We were on the train to tour the zoo at night time, and this similar Tapir suddenly came out from no way, and he accidentally saw it when it get real close to our train...He was like, met the eyes of a devil in dark. Even until today, he talks about that.

A guide stood somewhere at this point. She seem very bored, so I approached her and asked her to take a family photo for us. She was very freak out at first, like she never hold a camera before. Anyway, I set everything properly, show her to press down the button. She was very happy when I show her the good photo she had made for us. Thank you.

Bird show. Although not many surprising stunts can be performed by the birds, it is a good one.



Generally, the show is good because of the kind of the birds, the size and the quantity we get to see here. Another characteristic of XSP, the animals here are bigger and bigger in group than any other zoo. Simply saying, if other zoo got 5 big birds, here they got at least double the amount. Same to the size.

As always, whenever a volunteer is needed on stage, the boys would eagerly raise up their hands. But, as always, they get very disappointed for they were never chosen. This time, they had learnt their lesson, they dumped their parents and sat on the empty seats, so as to make them more visible. Too bad, none of them was picked. I feel so so sorry for them.

This parrot, is trained to recognize big notes only. It will landed on the people who show 10 notes on hands. If you show it 1 dollar note, it will totally neglect you. If you show it 50 cent note, I wonder if it will sxxt on you?

This bird is not one of the participants in the show. Just a bird rested on tree top.

I don't know what this goat is called, but considering its size and its appearance, I would call it the King-of-all-goats.

My first time to see the rhinos kiss. Judging from the fence between them, guess the lady rhino over the fence must not be its wife.




Poor baby, the mom won't want to share its yummy foods with him.




Interesting, I wonder how big is an anteater before we can call it a giant anteater?



Giant Anteater from Honduras. Its size is almost the same like William. Giant?
(Sorry son, for I'd repeatedly used you as a comparison with those animals)





Footnote : Being curious, I'd checked the Wikipedia to find Honduras. Ok, the place was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras (now Bezile). The country is bordered to the west by Guatamala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea.



HELP, where the hell is Honduras?

Children's Theater, performers are big black bears, monkeys, goats, dogs and humans.

Oh, I don't know the black bears can actually throw things like we do. I think I read somewhere before that if one animal can walk like we do, they are highly intelligent.

There is one thing I'm very unhappy about the show...this particular trainer is very very rude to the bear. He deliberately threw ball towards the bear's chest very hard, and he pushed it very hard too. Bugger, if he ever kicked the bear, I would sure shout at him and thraw him spoilt egg myself. The loyal bear, so obedient that it never threw a tantrum once. Also, it tried hard to please the trainer by always tuck its arm around the trainer's and stay close to him. Shame for the trainer.

After the show, we continued our walk. Look at that gibbon, when it saw me, pointing my camera to him, he started to show off its stunt and pose still for me. Amazing. Thanks, pal.

The orangutan too, pose before my camera. Thanks.

Come to think of it, we are just a few evolution from the apes, and we basically came from the same genetic pool. Now then, I feel we are relatives to them.

Ahhem...feels so closed to them that I feel shy to look at his private part.




Just like any mother-and-son, or father-and-daughter on earth.

One of my hypothesis why the animals here look so happy and active...who won't like to stay in a place like playground? Besides that, this zoo reflects one thing : Big country, big house. Small country, small house.

Throw him nuts, he swim over to collect it. Wonder if I hold a banana in hand, will he jump to me?

With its proven breeding methods, Xiangjiang Safari Park cares for over 130 white tigers which accounted more than half of the world's white tiger population. After one week of observation, Lady Ramsay from AACL commented that “ Xiangjiang Safari Park is indeed one of the best natural wildlife reservation Sanctuary ”. Cool.

Both of the white tigers pose for me. How can I disappoint him. This one is on the left.




This one is on the right. They are so pretty.

I forgot to count, but I think there are around 10 white tigers lingering around here.

Not just white tiger they got, but white lions too. So cool.

And white pelicans too. Wait, is pelican white in colors?

And here got many dark swan too. They make the ordinary white swan looks so ordinally.

There is nothing too special about flamigo. But a huge crowd of flamigos will make them something special.

I seldom paid attention when I get to see flamigo, but this time. I noticed that when they sleep, they curve their long thin neck and put it on their back. Interesting.

The boys have endless energy, everywhere they go, they run.

Safari on wheels entry. A minute ago, the entrance was still clear and clean. A minute later, the long queue had formed.

Beginning in 2004, XSP has invited visitors to see the park by driving themselves around in the Safari on Wheels. XSP is the only place in mainland China where guests can take their own cars on the tour. Alternatively, visitors can travel in specifically designed zoo trains to enjoy the experience. Either way, the experience ensures that visitors will get up close to wild animals in their natural environments.

Those animal hats can make everyone looks cute in it, isn't it? (cough cough)

The boys' lunch for that day, on the wheels, watching the animals along the road.

This cow came from Tibet.

This camel didn't drink enough water to make his front hump firm. Said by me.

Female deer?

Male deer? I think I heard the narrator said in summer time, patches can be seen on the deer's body.

Believe it or not, those baby bears stood up to welcome us. Hello, my friends.

Wow, white tigers again. Seriously, how many white tigers do they have here?

They even have lots of rhino here. No wonder they are proud of it.

Hippopotamus. They reminds me of Gloria as in the movie Madagascar.

Giraffes are friendly too. They came near to say hi to us.

Come to this place, the chances you can get to see a very Africa-scene is higher than in the Africa land.

I agree this is indeed the largest zoo in Asian. My legs began to feel sore at this point of time.

Suddenly, I heard William exclaimed : look, secret forest, then he ran into it. We followed him quickly. Frankly speaking, how I wish I can see some extinct animals from there.

But all we could see are birds, just some bigger birds. How disappointed. To compensate for the lost feelings, we took photos with the big birds in the secret forest anyway.

Looking back, we were damn so lucky that the birds didn't came to attack us from behind. They were like, 2 feet behind us.

Well, there is really nothing but birds. Why the heck they name it secret forest ??

Although tired, we continued to walk by following the zoo map. And there we entered the animal nursery. The babies animals are SOOooo cute.

We looked at this baby for a long time. He is an active one and his behaviour is not much difference from a human baby.

Vincent wanted to milk the cub so much. Ok, we paid RMB30, and the boys were allowed to feed it for a pathetic 1 minute, maybe less. Then it's other people's turn to feed it. We saw the cub sucked the milk as if it was very hungry. Poor baby. I think they never let the cub to drink till it full. They just use it to attract the visitors. Thinking of it make me feel very unethical.

The time was around 3pm. We took a break at the Giraffe Plaza, next to the giraffe feeding zone.

What was it thinking at that time? Or it doesn't need to think as foods were served right in front of it.

Isn't he looks like...aahhmmm...the orange patches buddy over there? Photo taken by William.

No way they can be as high as a giraffe, not even to half of its height.

Yes, me too. Really too tired by then.

It's a pleasant thing to do, I mean eat and watch the world feeding the giraffes at the same time. After 20 minutes or so, we felt half recharged.

We then continued to walk to the Australian Zone to visit the Aussie animals.

This is not a giant white rat, but a white kangaroo. And it's one 1 or 2 head, but quite a lot. As told, any animal that appears in white color is rare and precious.

The world's cutest animal, koalas have lived in Xiangjiang Safari Park since April 2006. In just one year since their arrival, the koalas have successfully bred 7 joeys, including an extremely rare pair of twins. In fact, they are the only koala twins in the whole world.

China Treasure Zone is located next to a hill which is covered with bamboos. With the total of 10 pandas here, Xiangjiang Safari Park becomes the zoo with the most pandas in China .

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By the time we reached there, most of the pandas were taking their nap. No action, no attraction. We left the place fast.

They have been bugging to go to the children paradise for long. So there we go...

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Yo, let's move it.

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There are many rides here, like g0-kart, King Kong Tower, Kangaroo Jump, Animal Dodgems. Unfortunately, quite a long queue here. So, we didn't manage to cover all of them.

End up, we have to drag them to leave to go for the elephant show.

Brand New Elephant Zone. There are 5 newly born baby elephants living in the zone with their mums.

Thanks for the pose, dude.

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The amazing elephant show is presented every day over here. Frankly speaking, this is the best elephant show I have ever seen.

A big applause !

Although exhausted walking from 10am to 5.30pm, I'm proud we have cover at least 90% of the zoo area. Our day wasn't end here. We have another program for the night...