First of two new posts

The Zoo

Who doesn’t like the zoo? I love watching animals at the zoo, so I found out where the Beijing Zoo was and George, my Greek friend, and I made a visit. It took us two half days to make it all the way through.

It all started with a game plan to meet at the zoo at 9 am. No problem right? Wrong. I took the subway without incident and came up to the street. Now based on my careful calculations I needed to turn left coming out of the subway and head two blocks west. My assumption was proven correct by a volunteer who in hand motions and basic counting told me to head three somethings in the direction I was going and go right. Okay, lets roll, so I confidently started out, taking in the sights. My confidence was boosted by seeing Beijing 2008 signs with sporting symbols. My confidence was boosted because two of the volleyball venues are next door to the zoo, so I figured I’m on the right track. About twenty minutes later, the Beijing 2008 Olympic posters had given way to...welll...nothing. I was just in a random neighborhood. So I saw another volunteer person posted for help, and showed them the map and asked for guidance. Oh, go south 3 blocks and turn left. Thank you, now we’re in business. When I hit the dead end trash filled alleyway, I thought to myself. Either this is the crappiest zoo ever or I’m really not in the place I’m supposed to be. And mind you George and I were supposed to meet at the zoo at thirty minutes ago. So I pulled the map out again, and now that I didn’t even know which way was North, that didn’t do a lot of good. If you ever find yourself spinning the map trying to match shapes of roads with the map, you’re not in a good situation.

I asked for some divine intervention, and God literally within 20 steps, sent me an English speaking student who asked me if I needed some help. I explained I was looking for the zoo. Politely, he did not laugh at how off the track I was, which I discovered when he pointed to where we were on the map. Now, I want to make sure you understand this part. This original volunteer who had given me directions, had looked at the map, which had an icon and chinese character name for the zoo. He had lead me East instead of West. It was ridiculous. I would have been better on my own. The student told me the best route, and I thanked him and began power walking hoping to still somehow catch George, who I figured by now, an hour later, had either given up and gone back home, or was already enjoying the Golden Monkeys.

I passed the subway going the right direction, and made my way towards an increasingly tourist area. I passed more Olympic signage, and then saw signage for the zoo! I pulled out the map to see how much farther I had to go, and felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to my astonishment to see George! He had gotten lost too, and we literally found each other randomly on a street still blocks away from the zoo. How crazy is that. He was worried that he kept me waiting.

We made our way to the front entrance, laughing about the occurrence. It was free admission with our accreditation pass. We started by looking at the reptiles and amphibians. Lots of turtles. Saw a King Cobra, and a lot of pythons. Next there was a penguin house, funny little guys mostly standing on their shore area. One was swimming in some suspicious looking water. Online I had read that the Beijing Zoo has some suspect conditions for many of the animals. Umm, yeah. Most of the animals were very small enclosures, and didn’t seem to have much energy. If I didn’t know any better, I would have loved it because it meant you were really close to the animals. They couldn’t get away from you. However, we have educated by the animal community and zoos in the states that animals need adequate space to live in at zoos for it to truly be a good situation. The monkeys had decent spaces to live, and some of the smaller animals were in good shape. However, we came to the rhino pen. It was laying down on its side, in a grass yard the size of a typical suburban backyard. Elephants in the same situation. That wasn’t the worst. They had an impressive collection of lions, tigers, leopards, and panthers. they were being kept in cages about 10 feet by 10 feet. They were pacing from one side to another as if crazy. Saddest thing I’ve ever seen for an animal. I’ve never been so close to a tiger or lion, but it made me appreciate an Animal Kingdom or other park where they give the animals ample room to run and live. These huge animals were in drab concrete chambers. The Chinese tigers were in an outside enclosure that was much better. National pride affects even the animals.

The other thing that was flabbergasting was, there were signs everywhere for not feeding the animals. What do you think the people were doing? Feeding the animals anything they had. So of course when the bears would sit or stand up in expectation for thrown food, everybody loved the show, however these people weren’t paying a bit of attention to the signs. Maybe I’m in the dark, but I’ve never seen that in the U.S. I’ve been to numerous zoos, and I’ve always observed people respecting the directions of how to observe the animals. George was even taken aback being from Greece. He said several times how sad this was. We really enjoyed seeing and watching the animals, but its hard to totally enjoy it when you know that these actions from the people happen all the time and they are not good for the animals. Where the heck was the military now!

The Giant Panda House was the exception. Great conditions and glass was the barricade to keep the herds of people from attempting to feed the pandas friend chicken or even their children for a great picture. And Chinese people love their Pandas. The zoo had 14 of them and they were like rock stars. People fighting to get a picture of their child posing in front. We enjoyed observing the Pandas play with each other and feast on bamboo chutes. We finished by going to the new aquarium which was inside of the zoo. Unreal. Brand new and incredibly facility. Great design and conditions for animals. Great exhibits, and very much on par with the new Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. They even had a dolphin and sea lion show which we took in. Dolphins can jump really high in the air. I was impressed. There were a lot of educational elements in the aquarium as well about rescuing animals and research.

Once outside we saw some signs asking for financial support for other areas of the zoo. It seems as though they know they have a problem with the animal conditions, but it hasn’t been made a priority by the government. PETA gets pretty worked up over small incidents in America, I believe its time they come over here. This could keep them busy for a while.

Great visit, great pictures, light crowd. It made for a great two half days hanging out. I especially enjoyed the time with George.

Tonight is the Opening Ceremony. The big show. I would recommend watching. There are some very cool elements involved. I have quite the setup at work for watching the Games. 4 HD monitors in my station with 64 feeds. 44 venues, do the math. Yep, I have total feed access, meaning I can watch all four rotations of the gymnastics at once, not just whatever NBC decides to show you. You see there is more than one feed from the major venues. I was watching swimming and gymnastics warm ups the other day. We also get 40 transmissions at our apartment, so I can watch whatever sport I want when its on. I can watch all the handball I want if I feel like it. If only I could figure out how to get this setup for the NCAA basketball tournament.