Day 19 - 23/10/09 - Beijing (China)

This morning was spent with our bathtub being used as a washing machine, and our bathroom becoming a Chinese laundromat. The cost of the hotel doing your laundry is rediculous (you may as well throw out your clothes and buy new ones), so we decided to do our laundry the old fashioned way. The end result was clothes hanging everywhere in our bathroom!

This afternoon we wandered down to the subway and made our way to a shopping street which was closed for renovations for a year, and recently reopened. The street looked really nice and it was fairly busy. The prices of everything were quite good also. As the sun was disappearing for the day, the lights on all the shops came on, and it looked great.

Day 20 - 24/10/09 - Beijing (China)

After a bit of a sleep in and some breakfast, we caught the subway to the Beijing zoo & aquarium (the aquarium is located inside the zoo).

Our first stop was the Giant Pandas which were so cute and we just wanted to cuddle them (but we will get that chance in a few weeks). Then there were various birds and pheasants until we got to the big cats - the lions and tigers. These were so beautiful.

It was around this stage that we began to feel really bad for the animals as the enclosures are nothing like those back home, and there were lions and tigers pacing back and forth in the cages with everyone yelling at them. The also throw rubbish at them to try and get their attention or to make them move.

Lunch was at an "Australian style Cafe" which was as far from Australian as you can get (other than the picture of Flinders St station and Sovereign Hill).

The aquarium was also very different to ours back home, and involved waterfalls, and some open topped tanks where you could feed the fish. There were so many amazing, colourful, and strangly shaped fish.

Jess was so excited to see the dolphin and seal show, but thinks the dolphins section went too quickly... as she could have watched them all day!

After the aquarium, we visited the elephants and some birds, then headed back to the station as it was getting dark and we didn't want to get locked in the zoo overnight.

Take care - Jess & Scotty