Saturday at the zoo

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It's the weekend! In our program, we get the weekends pretty much to ourselves. So today several of us decided to go to the Beijing aquarium, supposedly the largest aquarium in the world. The catch was that in order to get into the aquarium, you had to go through the Beijing Zoo. No big deal, right? Well, the reputation of the zoo is that you can hear the animals cry as you walk through it.
Fortunately, of the four of us that went one of us knew how to speak basic Chinese and got us safely to the zoo. The zoo part was very much like a park with plenty of trees and benches and a pond in the middle. Then we saw why the zoo has such a poor reputation. The whole zoo was pretty much a petting zoo and while there were animals that were caged in, their feces were not. One thing that really stood out to us Americans was the cage devoted to various types of dogs, something I've never seen at a zoo. Also, for 5 RMB (less than $1) they would give you a branch and let you in a cage so you could feed the giraffes. You were also able to get close enough to touch the ostriches and zebras, but I was too afraid to try.
Finally we found our way to the aquarium! They had several different areas of fish: the Rainforest Adventure, the Tidal Encounter, the Acipenser Sinensis Aquarium, the Whale and Dolphin Discovery, the Wonders of Coral Reefs, and the Marine Mammal Pavilion. In the rainforest area there were large masses of colorful fish that people were feeding, thus causing fish to jump on top of each other to get the crumbs. The tidal encounter was a replica of the coast where people were allowed to touch starfishes. There were several large aquariums, with extremely large fish and a sea turtle, where you could walk underneath and see the fish swim above you. Then we saw a show with acrobatic sea lions and jumping dolphins. This was very entertaining, even though I had no clue what the MC was saying.
By the end of the show, we were tired, hot, hungry, and ready to head back. On the way home we stopped at a restaurant and ordered a meal for the first time without our leaders. It was very good. We had a tofu soup, pumpkin fries, and an eggplant dish. Then we ended the day with a stop at Wu Mart. Here I got some leechee fruit to try, I have heard they are really good. Overall the day turned out to be a good adventure for our first time "out on our own".

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Photos

Beijing Zoo
Pond with birds

Beijing Zoo
Elephant, in case you couldn't tell

Beijing Aquarium
The performing dolphins.

Beijing Aquarium
Performing sea lions

Beijing Zoo
Left to right: Rachel, me, and Melanie.

Comments

[Lisa D]

Pumpkin Fries?
Hi Tekla. What exactly are pumpken fries? My thoughts are that they are pumpkins cut like normal potatoes fries?

[Jessica]

leechee
Did you enjoy the leechee? Sounds like you are having great adventures.

[Mary Lou]

great fun eh?
Great to see you are doing well!! Tried to print your blog to take home to mom but library printer only prints part, so will bring her up another day. Hugzzz your cuz Mary Lou