She was so sad to miss the Panda House at the Beijing Zoo. I went with Cathy this morning while Lauren slept, other Lauren had reflexology and a massage at the hotel's spa and the boys had a shave... after which the Davids went over to their Beijing office to catch up with a little work and Richard had some free time to relax.
The pandas were AMAZING! I had read about how actively they play but it was better than I'd imagined. We got to the panda house and saw one lounging around in the corner. There was a great wooden structure, much like a jungle gym at the park. It had a slide, a tire swing, a bunch of wooden things to climb, a jug hanging down from a rope, and a little pool.
But the panda wasn't moving and I thought, 'crap, just like the zoos back home, animals laying around doing nothing... until they're fed'. Then I grabbed the map to see if there was a feeding schedule and when I looked up he was running up the slide. I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of photos and then changed to video. I think I took 6 or 7 throughout our visit. It was so great to watch him play... I mentioned to Cathy that he was the Kian of Pandas.
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| From Beijing: Day 4 -- Panda House at the Beijing Zoo |
When he got bored and went to lay back down, we walked to one of the indoor habitats, saw another sleeping one along the way outside, and found them all sleeping inside too. Boring! We went to check out the gift shop, since I'd had a special request for panda chopsticks and hadn't seen any in the markets. We found what I needed and a pencil for Lauren (it's tradition when we visit something new without the other to return with a souvenir pencil). The pencil looks like bamboo and has a panda head that is a sharpener on the top.
We walked back out of the gift shop and saw all of the sleeping pandas had gotten up and started eating. I got some great shots of them sitting in the bamboo and chowing down. Was such a great experience to see the Giant Pandas in Beijing.
The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, I had lunch with the boys and took them over to the market that I had been to with the girls a few days before. Had a few more requests for pearls from my aunt and got a few others as gifts, took them down to the floor of tchotchkes and bought a few more things myself.
Got back to the hotel before dinner to check-in with Lauren and show her the fruits of our shopping day, and realized I missed an entire section of my list... I ran back to the market and met everyone at dinner. I just had soup and salad and part of a dessert, which was nice to have a lighter meal!
Now I've just finished packing all of my souvenirs, tchotchkes, and other assorted crap... not to mention my clothes while preparing to get to sleep... The wake up call is in 2.5 hours! Here's my flight schedule for those of you who are curious:
6AM: wake up call
630: Breakfast
715: Meet Kitty & the driver in the lobby
8: arrive at airport
10: flight to Hong Kong
140: arrive in Hong Kong
415: depart to LAX
reliving Friday for the 2nd time:
215PM: arrive in Los Angeles, immigration, customs, change terminals
436PM: flight to JFK
1259AM (Saturday morning/Friday night): arrive at JFK
Such a long day...hopefully I don't miss my flight to NY or I'll have an even longer day waiting on the red eye that arrives at 6:10AM on Saturday! Wish me luck...
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