Since I was little, I always had one tradition to celebrate my birthday. In my family, we don't do cakes or parties or songs or presents. But since little, my parents will always agree to one request from me. They know I'll ask the same thing every year, and it'll be the best day of the year for me. I stopped that tradition ever since I moved to New Zealand, but now it's a chance for me to pick it up again, hehe, just for fun. What is my tradition? Since young, I'll ask my parents if they can take me to the zoo for my birthday. I love the zoo. Not so much of the fact that the animals are being caged, but because that I love animals~ hoho, i wanna see animals~~So today, hehe, making my little dream come true again, I asked if it's possible for us to visit the zoo this weekend. This is the only weekend that Gerard can get off work (as far as we know) and it'll be great if we can all go together. Gerard really likes the zoo too, so here we go!!
After we got off the bus at Chaoyangmen, we first bought some snacks and bread rolls as our lunch. Hoho, this is a new place that we found, they have a really awesome Taiwanese fried chicken here (6RMB per bag), it's sooo good. Then we took the subway to Xizhimen (our landlord told us to get off here). After we got out from Xizhimen, we realised that it's actually one station too early to the Beijing Zoo, there's actually a station called Beijing Zoo station. But luckily we got off early, on our way walking towards the zoo, we found some more cheap and tasty food places. This is such a long journey to the zoo, we each bought some steam buns, each for like 75cents RMB each or something, soooo good~!!!
Finally here we are: Beijing Zoo! It's the winter season right now so ticket is only 10RMB per adult. After we got the tickets, here we go! There were not too many people waiting in the line for the zoo tickets, or maybe we were just too late =P After we got in from the main entrance, we first found the Beijing Zoo tour map. What are we going to see first? The national animal of China = Panda!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pandas are kept in a special building. There's actually extra ticket that we have to buy to be able to get in and see the pandas. At first we thought it's quite ridiculous how they didn't say so at the main door, but then we thought about it, yeah, pandas take extra effort to be fed and maintained, and we really want to see the pandas, so...pandas here we come. There are few halls/buildings inside the panda garden. At first we saw the little red pandas, they're cute but not as exciting for us. Then we turned to see the real giant pandas, the black and white ones. Due to the cold weather a lot of the animals are actually kept inside the building rather in outdoor. By the time we saw the first panda, it is actually outdoor, but ASLEEP!!! (see photo) It's sleeping while sitting there, funny huh??? It was just sitting there and fell asleep!! It was soooo cute~!
We continued to walk further and saw a few more giant pandas. But maybe it's the timing (after lunch for the pandas) or it's due to the weather (winter), all the large size pandas we saw outdoor were dozing off to their dreamland. There's this particular one that I must talk about: this one panda sleeping on its side on a platform, Jordan and I suddenly realised that this panda is pooping!!! It's sleeping and pooping at the same time. LOL.
After finishing see the large pandas outdoor, we walked into this exhibition hall called the Olympic Pandas. I heard about this. There were 5 young pandas selected to represent the five rings of the Olympic symbol. These 5 pandas are younger and smaller. They were kept indoors. As we walked inside, these pandas are actually enjoying their lunch (with bamboo leaves). They're really playful, munching and playing with each other at the same time. I was really lucky to take this photo (see below) of the panda that happened to turn around and looked into my camera, hoho, so happy!! Pandas are really chubby and really slow, (well not THAT slow). Their kinda inproportionate body size and fat made them really wobbly while walking, hehe, it's really cute and funny.
After we got out from the panda garden we continued to explore the Beijing zoo. We had a few things in mind that we really want to see today. Like canines, elephants, giraffe (I was even wearing a giraffe top for today), hippo and rhino, bear, lions, tigers, monkeys etc. We first turned to find the monkeys.
All the different types of monkeys are kept inside cages, they were really lively and moving around all the time. Some of the monkeys are even responding to the teases from other tourists. We got really upset with some of the tourists around because they're throwing food and snacks over the top of the cage and feeding these animals. This is really annoying! There were large signs EVERYWHERE asking tourists and visitors NOT to feed animals because it's unhealthy for them and could bring danger to the animals. Tsk Tsk!! This is upsetting!
We found some really interesting stools outside one of the toilets in the zoo, it was stools for little kids decorated with animals legs. Hehe, it was soooo cute! Today I'm REALLY into giraffes, haha!!! I love it~~ so I picked the giraffe seat with my giraffe shirt, hoho, me so happy!~ I saw some visitors holding this blown-up toy shaped as a giraffe and I was so excited!! Me want!!!!! Jordan bought one by surprise and we had so much fun playing around with it. There were numerous times where I was just holding it, turned around and the giraffe head hits Josi, lol, sorry >_< id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418384701021761218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzLpCbeeJgBQ_LeQxCuxPlMK9CERQ2KaoFzjRcWnRHn7KdZtT4v53TsddlUAovEA-ibTdPJQA0l6p_euRohvW-EgwEoDpJEsmqmN2DVUKPUwPVux_KYXSXBcRurVP6XI4tygNntwElnjX/s400/DSC00823.JPG" border="0">
After we got out from the toilets the boys saw this rock thing outside, suddenly Jordan suggested that we'll be 'wild animals' and pose for some photos. LOL!!! What kinda idea was this? Well I guess it make sense, 'wild animals' for the zoo, lol. At first I was really hesitant in posing, but then Josi said that we can just be cute animals, hehe, me love~ The boys still posed for some wild animal look; and the girls posed for some cuter ones. But why am I so huge compared to Josi? LOL.
We spent the whole afternoon in the zoo until it closes at 5pm. We walked through several different parks and gardens inside the zoo. We saw wolves, foxes, and all sorts of canines. In the 'Big Cats' section we saw tigers and lions, also cheeters, leopards, etc. 
While we were walking through the massive parks towards our next destination (elephant) we saw this GIANT lion-shape rock! It was so massive and took us a long time to find an angle that will fit the lion into our camera lense. The zoo was really nice and big, the only thing is just that due to the winter season, a lot of the parks were closed and some animals were kept indoor inside cages, rather than allowing them to walk around outdoor in the 'open cage'. It was a pity and really sad to see that these animals were kept inside small, smelly, metal cages, but what more can we do? It's such a dilemma =( I decided not to post some of the photos I took of animals inside cages onto my blog, really don't see the need to make myself or anyone upset =(
What's really interesting and exciting for us was what we saw outside the elephant park. HOHO!!!! There were around 10 elephant statutes made of rocks outside the park. Kids were climbing the elephants, and some were being lifted and placed on top of an elephant statute by their parents for photos. We decided that we'll be children this time and take funny photos too.Jordan was posing on this really tall elephant statute that he needs to run before he can jump onto the elephant, soaring into the sky like a giant, roooooarrrrrrr. Gerard was being rather careful and make sure that he holds onto the elephant ears tight (but pay attention to the little kid at the elephant feet, haha, this is Jordan's favourite photo. While we were taking this photo, the little kid wobbled towards the elephant and starting hitting the elephant feet, like he was strong enough to push the elephant over, sooooo cute!!!) Josi was a little scared when she got picked up by Jordan and Gerard and placed her on the back of the elephant (and was even worse when she had to sit on the head of the elephant later for our group photo). I was just being me, smiling the same way like any other photo, lol; but it was actually really hard to get onto the elephant because it was really tall for girls. We tried really hard to squeeze everywhere onto this massive elephant and actually find someone who knows how to take photos (rather than chopping parts of us out of the camera screen, or not taking the elephant at all, lol). We really love these photos but guess what? After we got off we saw a sign on the grassfield nearby saying 'no climbing onto the elephants', LOL!!!! Oops..... hehe we just followed others >_<
Our zoo tour finished after visiting the reptiles section and when the zookeepers are starting to shuffle people out. We didn't even realise we were walking out of the zoo >_< seen ="(">
After getting out of the zoo, we crossed the road to this massive building so called 'Beijing Zoo Markets'. We were really interested about this place because when we told Anson's mum and our landlord that we're going to Beijing Zoo, their first reactions was 'to the actual zoo or to the market?'. Apparently the beijing zoo market is a place for really cheap things and it's a place where wholesalers will distribute their products. We got there at around 5pm but unfortunately it was closed around 6pm so we only had little time to walk around. Just within the limited time we were actually quite efficient. I bought a beanie for 25RMB, Jordan bought a Adidas bag, and the most amazing one: Gerard bought a pair of Nike! With Jordan's help, they managed to haggle the price down to 65RMB, hoho, it was sooo cheap and quite a good quality too! The shop owners got really pissed off at how Jordan is 'helping foreigners' and kept on saying 'why are you helping others not helping your own people' to Jordan. We quickly left after paying for the shoes to avoid further comments and potential conflits. Scary >_<
Dinner
We met up with Anson (my family friend, who I introduced into AIESEC last year and now a hardout AIESECer, hehe, so proud) for dinner before going to the AIESEC party later tonight. Since the party is going to be at Wudaokou (the students populated area in Beijing) so we decided to go there for dinner. We were recommended by some friends before for a Brazilian BBQ buffet near Wudaokou at the price around 50-60RMB.
The Brazilian BBQ was really NOT brazilian. Firstly the buffet is only limited to the side dishes / drinks / snacks that are actually Chinese style. Each table (not matter how many people per table) gets one sheet of paper with a list of the BBQ roasts available in the restaurant. Then waitors dressed up as Texas cowbys (what the hell? Texas cowboys for Brazilian?????) will come around to the table, cross off of the selections on the list and cut off some roasts from the rods they're holding for the table. This is so called BBQ buffet??? Luckily it was quite cheap (to NZD) otherwise it will be really unworthy =( It was really fun to have Anson around, a naturally happy and funny person, hehe, made all of us laugh the whole night.
Tonight there's an AIESEC RUC party, somewhere around Wudaokou, and we're supposed to find the group. Karina and Jordan (the new Jordan) are both there as well. This new Jordan, Jordan Chong, was an EP from Karina's LC, from Otago Uni, and he's here in Beijing doing the same project as Karina and Kayne. Our Jordan and the new Jordan are actually friends since primary in Auckland, and lost contacts while they went to different schools throughout the past years. They only just got into contact before our Jordan left the NZ and found out that both of them are going on an AIESEC Exchange in Beijing. How lucky was this!!!!!! I always call them 'soul mates', lol =P We ended the night by visiting Propaganda, lol, what a place to return to again. PPG was still noisy, smoky and crowded as usual. When will smoking be banned indoor in China??? >_<
Tomorrow's going to be another big day for us four!!! We're going to Happy Valley Theme Park!!! Woooohoooo!!!!!!
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