Went to see the pandas!

As it turns out, I did go somewhere interesting. No classes today because of the sports day, and the weather was fine, so I decided to go out. I went to the Beijing Zoo.

It is a large, but ordinary zoo. There are a few good exhibits, the African animals are kept well and there were cockatiels (in the bird section, which was good since the Australian animals section was closed). There is a lot of open space and some lakes through the middle, which combined with the clear sky (thanks to the rain yesterday) resulted in a very un-Beijing experience.


Manchurian Brown Bear


There were real ones but you can't ride them.


I saw one in the wild on my first trip to China.


Chinese River Deer

I left the pandas to last. When I left Adelaide it was still in the grip of panda fever, with two new pandas in Adelaide zoo. I didn't see them, but I couldn't get away with going to China without seeing pandas. The panda area needs an extra ticket to get into and contains two panda buildings, some outdoor panda areas and a token set of other rare Chinese animals. The two buildings are named after (and were built to commemorate) sporting events - the Asian Games panda house, and the Olympic panda house. The Asian Games one is a bit older and has fewer pandas in it. The lighting wasn't good inside so all my good photos are from outdoors.


Panda!


Panda running!


Spider-Panda!


Red panda!

With all that pandamonium, I was done for the day. After this I really don't think I'll be doing anything more until a week from now. Really.