On the way we drove past the Lama Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in China, and was built in 1694.
At the entrance to the zoo
The lesser panda. Why it's called that I have no idea, since it's related to the raccoon, not the panda.
But I'd take one home in a minute - they are so cute!
The Giant Panda - the whole reason we came to the zoo.
Some jerk was throwing rocks at it trying to get it to wake up.
This guy was in our tour group, and he and two others had so much fun jumping into random people's pictures.
We invited him to be in this one - though we told him we were offended that he never jumped in our pics.
This monkey was hilarious - he actually smiled at Tristan - looked him square in the eyes and smiled with his teeth showing. But, of course, once I got the camera out he was done.
The beautiful Chinese tiger
I don't know what this is, but there's a handsome boy on it's back.
It was crazy how close you could get to the animals.
The grounds were beautiful.
Unfortunately, the living conditions of the animals were not. The majority of their cages were barren and filthy and those that had open habitats had empty plastic bottles and trash in them. I'm not a huge animal activist, but it made me want to notify someone to see if they couldn't get it cleaned up.
I was told at some point, that the Chinese people don't use diapers. It's hard to see, but this little boy's pants have an open crotch, so all he has to do when he has to use the bathroom is squat and go (which he did shortly after I took this picture - right in the middle of the road we were walking on in the zoo). It was rather amusing to see parents carrying their children wearing these type of pants and lettin' their little tushies hang out. All I could think of was man! that's gotta be cold in the winter!
The way back to the hotel was truly an adventure. We walked out of the zoo and tried to hail a cab for at least an hour... then an American woman told us a couple of secrets (like hide the kids and cabbies don't like tourists because they can't communicate with them), but still nothing. So, we tried calling our tour guide as he told us to do if we had any trouble, but he never answered his phone. By this time I was feeling trapped, but trying not to let the kids know how anxious I was becoming. The sweet girl at the ticket booth at the zoo did her best to help us and then passed us off to the tourist information lady who spoke better English. We ended up having to take the subway to get back to the hotel as it was rush hour and we'd never be able to get a cab. So we headed over to the subway station and thankfully ran into a very kind English family who helped us get our tickets and on the right train (they were from London and used the subway system all the time). It took several trains before we were even able to get on one because it was so busy we couldn't push through the offcoming crowd to get on, especially with 3 kids! One of the workers there saw us getting tossed around in the sea of people and yelled at everyone to back off (at least that's what it seemed like), and motioned for us to head further toward the front of the train, indicating we'd have an easier time getting on. The next train arrived, and we got on without any trouble, and even had room to move on board. So, what could have been a really horrible situation turned out to be a great experience. Just another way to prove that God is always on our side and places the people we need in our path at the right time.
Tristan peeking in on the conductor.
The end of a great day!
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