young fashionista & giant pandas in beijing
The youngest of this family is showing some artistic flair which extends to her dressing – and since most of the days the kids just wear their school uniform I thought why not – let her wear today this cute dress despite the weather and the colour: it’s better to wear pretty things and get them dirty than let them go small while dusting in the closet.
This fashionista has also developed also some posing skills thanks to the “paparazzi” constantly asking if she, alone or with the other siblings, could pose for a photo, with or without the person asking for the photo…and I didn’t even consider my kids being very blond before moving to Asia (being different is the novelty factor for photo requests here).
So a rainy day in the Beijing Aquarium and Zoo (located within the city in Xicheng District) did not stop her wearing this lovely cream (with gold lamé) dress with her wellies, duck-printed rain jacket (which is not in the picture as it stopped raining – as even a rain doesn’t really bring the summer temperature down in this part of the world) and panda brolly. Quite an ensemble.
The place was really pretty outdoors with the mist rising and lots of green everywhere, but there didn’t seem to be that many animals, and even the most-expected pandas were all more of less resting. Anyway, we spend five hours mostly walking (or it seemed like) around and probably ended liking the best the jellyfish, just like in our other zoo visits. They are pretty cool, especially when lit with fantastic colours (which the Chinese love to do a lot I have noted)…
My review for Beijing Zoo and Aquarium: Between good and average
“The great thing about Beijing Zoo are the panda bears and the vast and green area where the zoo is scattered, but it also means a lot of walking to be done (across 220 acres). This attraction will take at least half a day to explore. Since we went there on a moderately rainy day the crowds were not huge either.
The place is somewhat run down, smells a lot and compared to many other zoos the animals do not have much place or very natural environments to roam around. Also, all the Panda bears were sleeping, which I understand to be a rather common thing. Bathrooms pretty nasty also. There are few restaurants – the food is pretty cheap and edible, but not great (and of course Chinese except for some sort of french fries).
The aquarium was a more modern site and nicely presented, and especially the colourfully lit jellyfish area was to our liking. They have fast food places, pop corn and lots of souvenir shops inside also. The ticket price for the aquarium, zoo and panda house for CNY 130 ($20+ USD), but for the zoo and pandas alone it would only be CNY 20 ($3+ USD). Normally kids under 1.2 m (3ft 10 in) go free, and that is the case here also.
All in all kids loved the zoo like they always do, but the mom was less impressed here…”