I, Sarah, lost the toss today and instead of going to see the Olympic site, The Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, we went to Alan’s choice, Beijing Zoo. Somehow, however, I have to write the blog on the place I didn’t particularly want to visit. Not sure how that works. I’m sure Alan will try and explain it. No explanation needed. I win. You lose. I’m the king of the castle.
This morning we had a slow start mainly because we slept in but mostly because some of us aren’t moving too well after walking so much the last two days. Dad opted to stay in today and after a couple of Nurofen, I was ready to make a move.
We found the nearby subway station which is called Beijing Railway Station just to be confusing. Each ticket is RMB2 no matter where you go (about 30 cents Aus) and the machines all have English buttons. The only problem is they don’t seem to like Alan too much and like to reject his notes and coins. The machine times out on him and we have to input all the information again and finally get our tickets.
Thankfully the train wasn’t too packed today and we even got a seat. After 4 stops we changed trains and 7 stops later we were at the zoo. The price is ridiculous, at A$2.30 and that included seeing the giant pandas. They have a large aquarium which is a lot more expensive at A$20 so we opted not to do that.
As suspected, the zoo was a little sad. I had heard that most of the animals live in concrete jungles and, right now, it looks so much worse as everything is still dormant from winter. It might look a lot different in spring and summer. It’s actually Spring here now, Sarah. Sorry, my mistake. The way you keep complaining about the cold I thought it must have been the middle of winter.
We first went into the giant panda section and saw a sleeping panda in the dark in a concrete box which was very sad. The next panda we saw was just waking up and was near the glass. His enclosure wasn’t too bad and we were able to get some nice pictures. He woke up, rolled over, yawned, and had a poop right there in front of us. Lovely!
The next panda enclosure was large with a couple of youngsters having a sleep but had plenty of toys to play with.
There were two others sleeping in separate enclosures as well.
We saw your regular animals; lions and tigers and bears (oh my). The bears were in a very large concrete enclosure without any water. One found a tiny puddle of water and was splashing in it obviously wishing for more . They have what appears to be a space for water but I suspect it has been emptied for the winter. Many of the lakes around the zoo still had ice on them.
We stopped for lunch when we saw Cafe – Australia Style.
However, there was nothing Australian about it. The menu had about 8 pages of drinks and one page for food which consisted of a New York strip steak, some beef stir-fry and spaghetti bolognaise. We opted for the bolognaise but, I ask you, do you know how hard it is to eat it with chopsticks? We could just about get the noodles in our mouths with the chopsticks, but trying to do the same with very sloppy pork bolognaise sauce was thoroughly impossible.
We went into the elephant enclosure but left immediately. They were in tiny boxes with glass and visitors banging on them. It was heartbreaking.
As we made our way to the exit, we came across some zebras which I was able to touch (feels like horse) and of course we had to visit the giraffes. Every time Sarah touched the zebra on it’s noggin, it tried to bite her.
We made our way to the exit expecting to purchase a Beijing Zoo magnet for our collection but,surprisingly, there was no souvenir shop. How weird.
Getting back on the train was easy and before coming back to the hotel, we wanted to check out the Japanese Restaurant across the road to see if it was suitable for dinner. We found the sign, entered the door but didn’t find the restaurant. Not sure where it was hiding.
Back in the room we had a nice two hour nap and then the three of us headed into the shopping centre in this building and went to Hong Kong Old Restaurant. Huge menu, mostly strange seafood like sea cucumber which Alan wouldn’t try. We had a BBQ plate of pork and duck followed by a beef and tofu dish and a fried rice. Sarah and her dad wouldn’t let me order the donkey jelly. And what sort of strange restaurant has no soft drinks!!!
Then it was back to the room to watch TV and plan our last full day of our trip for tomorrow. I still don’t think I’m going to get to see the Bird’s Nest.
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