China: Day 5

4:00PM
Today has been the best day in China! It is a bit cooler out with a faint breeze which made doing everything just a little easier. I had originally planned to go to another palace and temple, but after careful consideration came to the following conclusions: most of the temples look the same here and most of the palaces were built on a mountain. Since today is my last full day in Beijing (well I have almost all of tomorrow but I’d be too worried about missing my plane to go too far) I decided I was going to do something fun. So I went to the zoo! I know I’ve been to zoos in the states when I was a kid but I don’t remember. I took the metro to the zoo exit, bought what I thought was a combo boat tour/panda house pass and started checking out the awesome animals. I felt so comfortable being back around animals-I can’t wait to get home to the barn!
Before I got too far I decided to get on the boat for the tour. Here we go, a tour in Chinese. We are going along not seeing any animals when we get ushered onto a different boat. I’m starting to get the feeling that maybe this isn’t exactly what I thought it was. The boat doesn’t stop again for another 45 minutes, and when it does I’m by the Summer Palace (definitely not near the zoo). It took me a while to discern that the boats were actually water taxis, not tour boats like they were labeled. I could either sit through another hot and smelly ride all the way back to the zoo that would cost 40RMB or find a taxi somewhere. I hadn’t gotten to see the pandas yet so I was determined I was going back to the zoo. After confusing the poor guy at the Summer Palace ticket booth he finally let me cut across the palace to get a taxi. That was a three mile walk.
I finally found my taxi and tried to explain zoo to him. He wasn’t getting it so I pulled out a picture of a panda and pointed at it. Pictures really are worth a thousand words-trust me I tested this theory. Once I was back at the zoo I once again paid for a ticket. This time I wasn’t getting on any boats!
What an awesome way to spend the afternoon. If you ever plan on coming to Beijing don’t miss out on the zoo. There is plenty of shade and benches, the atmosphere is fun and relaxing and there is an amazing collection of animals. I opted out of lunch to buy some souvenirs-I can’t wait to share them with people back home. I even had enough left over for small popcorn. Surprise-all the popcorn is actually kettle corn. Yum!
I got to see lions, tigers, bears, and birds. I really wanted to see the Zebra and horse collection but I couldn’t find it. The place is huge! I could have spent all day there except I still had to metro back for the opera tonight. I managed to take the subway and do the two mile walk a lot faster than I expected. I ran into some ladies from Shanghai that wanted to get tea with me. I politely ran away remembering what happened last time I got tea.
Now I’m back in my room waiting for dinner to start in an hour. Instead of trying to figure out the bus system tonight I’m just going to spend a little extra for a taxi.

10:45PM

I decided to skip dinner so I could eat at the Lao She Tea House. Good thing I did because they served that famous Peking Duck and it was just as good as everyone raved it to be. Yum! I decided to upgrade my ticket to the middle section instead of the back. I’m glad I paid a little extra or else I doubt I could have seen anything.
To say it was a cultural experience would be an understatement. In order of performance: traditional folk music, dancing, lighted drum, Peking Opera, extreme tea serving performance, hand-shadow drama, acrobatics, face-changing opera, and Chinese Kungfu. Talk about talent! The lighted drum was two opera singers who played the drum and sang opera while holding lit candles in their mouths. The Peking Opera was more like a drama about a jester-looking guy who breaks into someone’s house and steals food. The extreme tea serving performance us guys with extra long tea steam pots that flung around boiling water without spilling any except to delicately pour the tea. The hand-shadow man was awesome! He did the best shadow puppets I have ever seen. I tried to get a video clip of all of the shows for reference, but I’m not sure how they turned out. The acrobatics were…wow. Three women (two with 3 plates and one with 5) performing dances and crazy moves, all while spinning plates on sticks. I doubt I could even coordinate one, let alone 5! The face-changing was another funny performance. This guy literally could change his mask in the blink of an eye. Last, but definitely not least was the Kungfu. Perhaps I’m partial to it because I study Hapkido, but I thought this was a great performance of skill and control. One guy even broke a steel rod on his forehead!
Throughout the performances we were served snacks (sunflower seeds, peanuts, and cookies), endless tea, and some white soup concoction that was very good. They even gave everyone a souvenir to take home. There was a room with pictures of all the famous people that had come to the tea house. It was surprising how many there were. It was especially surprising that there was a statue of George Bush in the lobby. Oh, and a side note to anyone from the Taiwan program reading this: some of the dancers did the Bernie. I’m not kidding. I nearly fell off my chair.
Next the epic battle for a taxi began. I waited on the street corner for 20 minutes just to snag one and someone jumped in front of me and stole it. After losing two more taxis I was finally figuring it out. I’d either have to get my game on or walk back (which was super far). 45 minutes later another taxi came around the corner. It was me versus an entire group of Chinese teenagers. Game on. As soon as the turn signal started flashing one Chinese girl and I set off at a dead out sprint after it. She technically beat me by a hair, but I had my address card out and shoved it through the window just before she could open her mouth to talk to the driver. SCORE! I was on my way back!
For some reason all the drivers think the hotel is at the opposite end of the road. My guy tonight was rather grumpy so I decided I would just walk down the road. Probably shouldn’t have done that, but at least I survived. It was a dark alley with drunken guys and creepy people. Definitely never doing that again.
I’m rather sad that my trip is basically over. A taxi is picking me up tomorrow at 1:30PM (hotel check out time) to take me to the airport. Most of the morning will be spent packing. I hope to get lunch and some tea in before I go. I guess my next post will be from home or the airport.