Beijing Day 3

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Today we booked our tickets for our next desination - Pingyao. Unfortunately though we have seats on a 12 hour night train as opposed to nice sleeper beds. Not so good. Then we headed to Beijing zoo. i was excited all day about but when we got there it was not so good. it was only £2 to get in so i guess they dont make a lot of money but the conditions the animals were in were pretty awful. The gorrillas and chimpanzees were in pitch black darkness a lot of the animals glass cages were cracked and people would just be banging on the cages to get them to do stuff. The worst part was the lions, tigers and bears. They were kept in these pits where you stood above them but there was no fences so people were makingthe bears dance then they would pour coke and fanta and other stuff down their throats. Then the lions and tigers would be sleeping so people would throw anything they could at them to try and wake them up. and the security did nothing just watched. it was really horrible and the majority of animals didnt look healthy. i took photos so i can send it to the rspca but jon said that it wouldnt work. i also ate a pea lolly which was DISGUSTING
The monkeys all looked pretty healthy and well cared for but again all the glass was smashed up. Then we went to see the pandas which are like the national pride and even they didnt look that good. they looked healthy but had dark empty cages with nothing to do but be gawped at. But they were pretty cute. When we went to leave it started pouring it down outside like literally the most heavy rain i think ive ever seen. so me and jon decided to wait it off in the panda house. played some cards and watched the pandas a bit. then the zoo closed so we had to leave. we had to literally wade through about 5 inches of water that had come from nowhere. we were soaked all the way through. When we got on the bus and the subway we literally left a river of water behind us. it was quite funny.
We got back to the hostel and changed into dry clothes and went for dinner. we went to a mongolian place where they bring a big burning chimney thing to your table that had hot coals in to keep it burning and round the outside of it is a bowl with this sort of soup thing. and you order your meat and then dip it in the boiling water and cook it yourself. it would have been nice but i think we orderedd the wrong thing and so it was just bland and pretty tasteless. Then we went to go clubbing but i was pretty tired again so just grabbed some beers at the supermarket and went back to the hostel where i think i had one beer and was then fast asleep.

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