i always start off a beijing adventure right with a bowl of soymilk and fried dough. jon tried to have the hot soymilk and the cold soymilk at the same time, and as my mother warned, he ended up with a war in his stomach.
the first day, we went to the obvious places: tiananmen square, the forbidden palace, and yiheyuan. the weather cooperated fully (now that i'm british, i like to take note of these things), and we randomly bumped into frankie from work, who happened to be going to all the same places...but we obviously didn't want to go together, so that was a bit awkward. after a round of introductions, we let him walk on ahead, and tried not to catchup too quickly.
this sign forbade the scratching of walls. i'm glad the government is taking the necessary measures for the preservation of historical sites.
LION! TIGER? LIGER?
the second day, we had the grand idea that we would hike between two stations of the great wall, but a traffic accident conspired against us. we did manage to walk around a bit, and some guy tried to fine me for climbing on the walls, but he was clearly drunk (inspite of his official arm badge), so i managed to get away clean. i was also very close to finally buying a hairy russian hat, but i escaped from that silly notion too.
and afterwards, we went to a famous beijing duck place: quan ju de, that jon had learned about in his chinese lessons. they put on a nice show during dinner with lots of old beijing cultural things (like the long stemmed teapot dance)
and the third day we went to the zoo! the beijing zoo is the best zoo in the world, b/c they're not so concerned about animal rights as to give every single thing an acre large compound. obviously, they're very nice to the pandas (those things are cash cows!), but lots of other things are just running around in concrete cages with painted walls. which means, you know, you don't have to walk a mile to try to pick out the lone cuddly thing which is inevitably hiding under a bush.
don't get all up in arms, let's remember our priorities (humans first!--as in, if you're gonna protest anything to the chinese gov, perhaps it should be humans rights, not animal rights--and this is by no means an advocation to protest the chinese gov. they're a lovely gov, and i was very happy as a chinese citizen, which is, i'm sure, exactly how all the animals feel). they
do have large compounds, but the animals have to take turns in them. so between like 10 large cats, they'll have 1 large enclosement, and while the other 9 are languishing in their cells, 1 will have the room to frolic. and whatever the animals lack in space, i'm sure is made up for in feed. every animal we saw seemed to be eating. watching hippos eat is GREAT fun. every couple of bites, they'll lift their great maws as if to coax their cud down their gullets. i wonder if they can swallow without the gravitational aid.
these wolves? hyenas? were running frantically in circles, trying to hide their bits of meat. every once in a while, two wolves? orbits would intersect, and one would bully the bit of meat out of the other one's mouth. or one would deposit his meat into a hole in the ground, only to have it found by another one. very hyper animals, these. reminded me quite a bit of sir wile e. coyote.
in a tragic twist of fate, this tire ended up locked in a cage with a frustrated tiger. must've been a bad tire in a past life.
one of these things is unlike the others...but he does a very good gay kangaroo impersonation, doesn't he? go on darling, you're a wild thang! make love to the camera, be a jungle beast!
and here, he seems to have an elephant up his butt.
ah, ethel and henry, the lovely couple.
fried scorpions anyone? also on offer: starfish and spikey things.
wangfujing small snacks street. now that's my type of street.
2 comments:
yay! beijing zoo!
DUDE THAT LOOKS AWESOME!
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