Today started a bit differently. Ty woke up not feeling great. So we had our usual breakfast in the hotel, and then let him rest for a bit while we all hung out in mom and the kids room. We sat around for an hour or so before mom and I decided to take the kids to the zoo. We were about to get on the elevator when Ty said he was up and feeling better. So we layered up and headed off. R was so excited to show her panda the real Pandas!
We saw this on our walk to the subway. Crazy!
So there were a few things about this zoo and the Chinese culture that we noticed. A lot of walls around the animals weren’t enough to keep a separation between the people and the animal. What we noticed about the people (just our observation) was that they ignored any warning signs. There were numerous signs on every enclosure stating not to feed the animals but we saw it happen several times. We also saw this at the Natural History Museum, signs saying please don’t touch, and people reaching over them to touch the displays. It seems so counterintuitive to the ‘rule following Chinese’ idea that I always had.
We would see trash from food in the animals enclosures. It was sad. The animals raced up to the fences to see if we would feed them.
We spent all afternoon at the zoo. Then Ty was starting to feel a little under the weather again, so we headed back to the hotel. We ordered so-so room service for dinner. The kids fell asleep almost instantly again, while Ty sat with them. This way mom and I could have our nightly retreat and chat. This really was as wonderful system!
