We went down to breakfast at the hotel buffet. It was a great mix of Western food and Chinese food. Jay ate like he was starving and we had to remind him that we would come back tomorrow so he wouldn't continue to eat! Noodles and fried duck breast seemed to be J's favorite while Tim did his typical Chinese breakfast of Fried noodles, fried rice and pork and beans. Lots of options! Jaden was thrilled with the dragon fruit. (It is this bizarre looking prickly thing that has white with black polka dotted fruit.) He kept saying, "This is the best dragon fruit ever! I dream of this dragon fruit!" As usual for everywhere in China--the coffee is what my dad would have said is "Gooood coffee!" A "compliment" usually reserved for cruise coffee and old hospital coffee.
After that we made it through surprisingly mild traffic to the zoo. It was very pretty but small. The difference between our zoo at home and this one was interesting. The area for humans was beautiful with running streams and gorgeous garden areas but the areas for the animals were spartan. The animals could have been touched through the fences if you didn't care much about keeping your fingers. Very different from home where there is always a big barrier between the animals and the people. Katie, as expected loved the zebras. We had to pull Katie back because she wanted to touch the Mama and Daddy Zebras. Since they were biting each other, I assumed she might look equally tasty. I thought Katie would be glad later that we made her keep her remaining fingers intact. ;)
Jaden ran around saying "Take a picture!" as he pointed at everything. We watched the Lemurs for quite a while. They were running around like, well, wild animals. They had several babies riding on their mamas' backs. Jaden thought it hilarious when one of the babies bit his mama on the butt. He was trying to tell random people about the funny baby. For future zoo goers...bring an umbrella. In places there were so many birds in the trees above that you needed it! Yuck.
As always, Tim and the kids visited every bathroom in a 5 mile radius!
We went shopping after that to an indoor mall with hundreds of little stalls. Jade, pearls, silks, toys--lots of bargaining to do. Unfortunately, if you don't bargain you will pays several times what you should but there are a couple where it is inappropriate to bargain??? Our guide reinforced several times that we should bargain but then at one place he waved us off and said you can't bargain here. I'm not sure how to know the difference. (Any seasoned China shoppers, feel free to chime in!))
At each adoption, we have gotten jade crosses and Tim wanted to get one here also and so we bargained. Who knows if we got a bargain but they seemed fine to us. :)
As an aside, you may notice fewer pics of Jaden than normal; he has decided making weird faces is cool. Jaden LOVES our guide, David Wang.
After that we went to one of the oldest noodle shops in Beijing. It was very good. Laura was sister supreme and practiced her left handed chopstick noodle feeding techniques. She rocked it! The kids are going to gain a million pounds. (I may lose a few if I keep trying to eat with the chopsticks.)
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