Day Ten

Beijing Zoo - Hairdressers

Lazing around the hostel for a bit we gathered our stuff together for the day & headed for the zoo. First before going the zoo we decided the take a little bus ride to a massive camera shop to see if we could purchase a genuine camera battery. In the shop, again communication was hard no matter how much we tried to explain they didn't have a clue - no battery was purchased!
Walking down the street with no idea of which way we where heading we found a KFC. Yum yum breakfast calling - everyone please take note: Do not & I mean DO NOT eat KFC in China - so so wrong on every level. Trying to get to the train station was going to be a challenge with the lack of communication in these people. I had a brain wave! Tucked in the bottom of my bag was the book the guys from work bought me as part of my leaving present. It is a book of just pictures no words just photographs that you can point at so people understand. It worked a treat, we where at the subway in no time at all!

On the train again & heading for the zoo. It's proper hot on the underground because everyone is rammed on so it's a good thing that the Chinese people are small. At the entrance to the zoo & the sun was blazing but there was still a nip in the air. We headed for a shop to buy some water & ice-cream. Zoo tickets bought & we where in.

The zoo was massive, we grabbed a map from the tourist information & made our way the the pheasant part! Most of the birds in this part are what we have back in England but the Chinese were totally fascinated by them. The next section was the nocturnal animals but again we have chipmunks & stuff at homes so who was bothered, only the Chinese hahaha. The next & most important section for us was the panda house. From the outside the building looked massive but on the inside what a different story! The 1st panda pen was small the little panda looked segregated from the rest & didn't seem very lively at all. It was just walking around & kept going to the keepers door, it's eyes looked sad. I was getting quite upset. Moving along the different panda enclosures the conditions seemed to get better. There was a big panda having a snooze & the cheeky b***** was on its back with one of it's back legs up the wall - it was quite amusing for us. They had another panda house called the Olympic pandas & the room they where kept in was better again. There were 3 pandas in this section & each one was having a kip. They moved positions every now & again but it was funny how they just flop around!

From the pandas we went to see the panther & leopard. The leopard was beautiful but it looked in torment just pacing around it's small enclosure. It was walking very close up to the glass window like it was doing laps. There was a big glass window which had grates at the bottom & if you bent down & put your face up to the grate you was face to face & could feel the leopards breath. We took turns at blowing on the leopards face & it would snarl & look at the glass - it looked proper fierce. On to the lion & tiger section & they weren't kept in much better conditions but at least they where outside in the fresh air. The lions were just lazing around but as one got up & walked around you could see it was malnourished & our dog Millie at home probably gets fed better, in fact she does!!! There was a big enclosure that had the biggest white tiger I have ever seen, it was lying stretched out & was making whaling noises. It looked cuddly but I bet it would swallow you in one bite.

Time for a toilet stop! The horrible dreaded toilet stop. I grabbed some tissue from by the sinks & headed in to the smell of urine - it's mega vile words can't describe it's nastiness. As I passed cubicles there were heads sticking out & women of all ages proper squatting. These women didn't have any dignity, they just left doors open - how very frigging nice of them, I didn't want a front row view but they sure give me one. I had the biggest & best brain wave on the planet EVER - I headed for the disabled toilet because surely they couldn't make the disabled, legless & infirm squat, surely not (if they did then that's something I would like to see hahaha!). Whoop whoop I was right - bingo bango I found a normal toilet, much to my relief I'm telling you! Business done & back outside I was in another state of shock. There was a lady with a small child of about 2 & she was letting him poo on the grass & using a dogggy bag to scoop it up. The best of it yet is that the kid didn't even take his pants off - the poor little sod had a split right down the back of his pants showing off all of his bum (good idea I suppose but come off it!). Could you imagine the children of Liverpool running around with splits right down the back of their trousers - bizarre!!!

Recovered from the shock but still discussing this issue we headed for the bear enclosures. Again the bears were massive & they where kept outside in a similar enclosure to the lions. These bears looked hungry. Whilst we where stood watching them a group of school kids who were in the zoo on a school trip where leaning over the railings & were spitting at the bears. The teachers just stood there & watched. I know spitting is normal in China but that is just plain wrong - the horrible tw**s. I thought the bears wouldn't be hungry if I threw a few of the horrible kids in the to enclosure & it would serve them right.

Totally annoyed by this we decided to go on the boat ride that was included with the ticket. There was a wait for the boat so we parked our bum on this little wall & waited. Two boats arrived but what one do we get on! As we wanted to come back to the zoo as we hadn't seen everything we opted of this small boat which took us on the smallest tour ever down this river. The tour guide was rambling in Chinese so we didn't have a clue what was going on. On the way back & gazing out of the window we saw a man riding his bike & no word of a lie he was wearing oven gloves - well that was it, I was in hysterics & couldn't stop laughing & when Andy looked around as I asked him what he was doing he replied that he was checking to see if he was wearing a tea cosy for a hat. The further we went on the boat trip the more laughter - I swear I couldn't stop & I was getting stern looks from the Chinese tourists on the boat because they were so enthralled with the worse boat ride ever. Proper comical were them oven gloves.

Off the boat & after laughing so hard I had pains whilst walking to the ape & monkey house. The little monkeys are great & so fun to watch. Their enclosure was massive & they had plenty of rope & play things to swing about on. I could have stood for hours watching them. There was one big black monkey that was jumping straight at the glass & right in our faces, I'm sure it wanted to escape & who could blame it. Unfortunately the gorillas weren't on show as there were workmen fixing up their enclosure but god knows what conditions they were kept in out of the view of the public.

The most upsetting part was the orangutangs. They were extremely sad, the enclosure looked dirty, it was dark & damp looking. If you went to use your camera especially with the flash they would cover their eyes. The looked as if they were scavenging around & they looked really thin. We didn't stay in there too long. Swiftly moving on we headed for the reptiles & amphibian place. In there was lots of snakes & lizards but nothing special that we haven't really seen before. For me the only exciting thing in the reptile house was seeing the Chinese amazed by turtles or the crocodile but as we will hopefully be seen some wild ones in Oz crocodiles that is we decided that spending a full day at the zoo was enough so we left.

We headed back in to our hostel so that we could speak with the nice tour man Michael about booking the Great Wall of China. We didn't want to go to the touristy part so we opted for a place called Mu Tian Yu which was far away & very very hard to climb. It is meant to be the oldest part of the wall. Tour booked & out of the hostel & with our legs in pain from all this walking we found a nice little restaurant place which was cheap & clean looking so we headed inside. After sitting down & placing our order of rice, meat & a sauce they provided us with a mini connect four so we had a few games whilst waiting for our food. The food came & it was delicious but we had ordered far too much. After settling the bill of £6 we headed back to the hostel.

Next door to the hostel was a hair salon. It looked quite posh to tell you the truth & I could do with getting my wig chopped. After a few scary moments I negotiated a price for a hair cut - £3 that will do me. Unsure of what they were going to do to me I put on the salon gown & followed the Chinese man to the hair washing sinks. I thought are you messing, I'm getting my hair washed as well - that will do me. After a 15 minute head massage & hair wash I was in the midst of the scissors. I certainly made sure that this chap cutting my hair knew exactly what I wanted. I kept looking in the mirror to make sure Andy could see what the dude was doing to my hair & hopefully stop him if he went crazy. Another 40 minutes later & I was getting my hair dried & styled in a lovely hair do. After about 1 1/2 hours I came out of the hairdressers well pleased & for £3 I weren't moaning - secretly I knew Andy was jealous!!!

Back in hostel & in bed, sleepy time, ready for the great wall tomorrow......