July 9th in China, ZOO and Pandas!

I got up early on this day because Whitney, Matt, Allie and I had made plans to get to the Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas! It was fun we got there around 9 am and stood in line for our tickets. We got into the zoo pretty fast and headed for the Panda exhibits first. The first pandas we saw were pretty laid back and non-active. But then we walked over to what was called "The Olympic Pandas" and the pandas in this enclosure were just full of life! They were so cute I took so many pictures and recorded a lot of video. We spent quite a bit of time in there watching the pandas. When we left the Panda house we saw certain animals such as American wildlife (owls, coyotes, foxes) and then also monkeys and giraffes. We walked around forever looking for the flamingos and also looking for the Penguin house. The zoo was really beautiful, lots of ponds and a creek/river with amazing bridges. Also there was an area that was really cool because it had about 12 stone elephants all in this courtyard that were all different shapes and sizes. Lots of people were getting their pictures taken with these statues so of course we all did the same! haha! After the elephants statues we actually found the penguin house, it was pretty cool. I again got some great pictures and then in the basement of the Penguin house there was oddly enough the bat house. We didn't stay down in the dark around the bats long though. When we were walking out of the Penguin house we ran into a group of elementary school chinese children. It was by far the cutest thing that happened at the zoo because all 30 or so of the kids were waving and saying hello and then their teacher took a picture of us Americans with all the kids around us. It was the highlight of my day! So cute! After that we ran into a couple people from America as well, Connecticut I believe is where they were from, and it was fun to talk to them. It was an older women and her daughter and the older lady said that people just kept stopping her for pictures. I guess white haired white ladies are quite the sight here in China! haha! After the zoo we headed back to the hotel where I was able to get in a small nap. After my little snooze I headed out to pick up my laundry and ran into my friend Mark while I was there. So Mark, Matt and I all ended up walking to the canteen again to get some food. I tell you what the Kung Pao chicken is awesome! After dinner I was walking back to my room in the hotel and ran into a couple of the other girls in our group and they invited me to go with them to a district called Hou Hai, which has lots of clubs, karaoke places and love music. It was one of the girls', Ashley's, birthday. So I decided that it may be fun to go out. So we all got ready and took a cab out to Hou Hai. The first place we stopped at was called the Paradise club. The music was good and it was a neat place to sit but we weren't there long. we walked all over just listening to the music and seeing what was going on. my favorite highlight of the night was in this place where there was a chinese punk rock band playing. They were actually really good and guess what their closing song was?? HAHA It was Stand by Me. I was like "Hey I know this song"! After that we were pretty much all wiped out from walking around and it was also late so we called it a night. It was quite the full day with the highlight being the kids at the zoo and definitely the Pandas! If you are ever in Beijing you must see them! haha