Beijing Zoo

What with it being National Week in China last week, Beijing was extremely busy. After seeing how busy Tianamen Square and the areas around the Forbidden City were we thought it would be better to leave those to another time when there were less tourists. Therefore we went to places more suitable for a sunny day. After Behai Park we headed on the tuesday to Beijing Zoo, supposedly the biggest in Asia and home to some 6000 different animals-all of which seemed to be sleeping whilst we were there. The zoo itself was in nice surroundings but the tiny enclosures that the animals were given to live in were not particularly nice, and I doubt that (for example) London Zoo would get away with similar.


We mainly went to see the Panda's. They were in a seperate enclosure to the rest and they had a little more space. There were about 10 in total. But all of them were either sleeping in doors in their enclosure or curled up in the corner or their outside area, so it was hard to get a good view. We have been told (by Mike and Gaz) about a Panda sanctuary somewhere so we hope to go there and have a look for proper at some point.

The best thing at the Zoo was undoubtedly the Aquarium. Its massive and you could spend easily as much time in there as the Zoo itself, especially if you made sure you took in all the different Live shows that were being offered. We managed to see one with the dolphins but, due to our not being able to read chinese, missed the Killer Wales. The rest of the exhibits in the aquarium were also amazing-but probably not a scratch on wet the Sea Life Centre at Hunstanton has to offer.

All in all it made for a very nice day out.