We got too see all the pomp of a wedding this morning. Great fun.
Oh the excitement to finally be there, all wanting to see Panda's.
Sooo many people, soooo very many people.
The first panda sighting.
It's sleeping.
And another one, also sleeping.
Lots of panda information in the panda house.
Even more shopping in the panda house.
Guess what? Yup, another sleeping panda.
Lili trying out the panda food.
Much needed. Kids were melting. Adults too but we didn't want panda umbrellas :) Ok...well I did actually but didn't want to appear uncool with our new friends.
Holey moley, another sleeping panda!
Seeing the real wolves was just sad beyond words, but these ones were fun.
The drinks were sealed with Pleasant Goat tops. Fun stuff.
Only in China man, only in China.
Ohhhh, the sweet relief of air conditioning.
Probably should have taken video here, they are all inspecting their grapes, very, very, very carefully. ? Lili just grabbed a bunch like we do at home.
Everyone told me not to go. They were all right. Now I'm telling you, don't go to the Beijing Zoo! Sad, sad conditions for the animals. You'll walk for hours to see very little and the crowds are astronomical. Lili wanted to see Pandas and we did see some but it was totally not what she had hoped for. Then we saw wolves and their deplorable living situation and we were done. The group was attempting to get to the aquarium but honestly after watching Big Miracle on the way here, I wasn't up to seeing how they keep whales. Can't fathom why they get away with their zoo in the condition it is. They might consider giving the animals to other zoos and just making it a big park. It is a lovely park.
We were able to walk from the hotel. We bought popsicles from a guy on the street with a cardboard box full of them. 1 yuan each, 17cents. I treated the whole group. No clue what the flavor was, my guess was leechee nut. I thought they were awesome. Lili not so much. There is no shortage of cold drinks and frozen treats to buy so that has wonderful.
The three girls did great together. We're considering a day trip to a different section of the Great Wall with them tomorrow. We'll see. Trying to wing it.
Really hot this afternoon. We clearly need to head out early morning instead of waiting until 10:30. I'm burnt of course. Crazy hot at the zoo on the pavement. We were all melting. All squat toilets there. Managed ok. Our lunch was hillarious. There are Mambo huts all over the zoo, advertising hot dogs and ice drinks. We stopped and got all three girls a hot dog. They were advertised as intestinal tubes. Yum. They each came with two weiners and ketchup smothering them. No mustard in sight. Lili and I took one weiner out and thought they were quite all right. Not the greatest by any means. They had the bun right. Lili asked me why everyone was staring at us and I said 'likely because you're with white people' and she said 'no Mom, they are ALL staring at us'. So, I looked up and sure enough every single person there was staring. The tables were all full with families. I wondered what faux pax we had committed but then Lili said 'look, they ALL have noodles!'. She was right, every singe person had a big bowl of noodles, they were obviously quite facinated by us eating hot dogs. Too funny.
Fei, apparently there was a polar bear there, but we opted to not go see, we just knew it would be a nightmarish. So we just tried to enjoy our walk around the waterways. The people watching was fabulous. All families, kids everywhere. Lots of split pants. Cute babies everywhere.
We finally found our way out and walked back the way we came. I thought we passed a grocery because I saw little carts and the giant plastic strips to keep out flys on one of the buildings. We stopped and checked it out and it was a grocery store, a few minutes away from out hotel. Yay. We stocked up on water, fruit, noodles, chips and flavored drinks. Fei, we found Chinese skittles! We bought three packs for home.
Once we got back to our room we quickly filled the tub with cold water and had a cold bath. Man did that feel great. Now we're feeling chilled, wrapped in big robes and loving the air conditioning. I have zero desire to head out in the heat again today. We just ate some noodles and bread and peanut butter. Lili is still interested in the Pizza Hut across the way. Maybe tomorrow or later tonight if it cools down. We're both feeling tired. We have figured that we can reach the netbook near the end of my bed and if we lay backwards we can watch some netflix.
Lili here:
Hi again. Today was majorly interesting, very hot and sorta' sad. Sadly my favorite part of the day was my cold bath with Mom. That was just too funny. It was so hard to get into the cold water. We could have gone to the pool but Nicola told us the water is warm in the pool. It was so sad to see the wolves in their horrible cages with nothing but dirt and mud. I wish I could find them all homes. Shopping for groceries was fun, very interesting stuff. It was very crowded today and I didn't like people touching my skin because they were all sweaty. Gross.
