The Adventures of Soon Tiang...: Beijing Day 4

Got up at 8am, as the plan for the day was to visit the Beijing Zoo, Aquarium and the Summer Palace (Yue Her Yuan). So, got to leave the hotel by 9am in order to visit all of those before dark.

Asked the hotel reception how to get to the zoo, and they say.. go straight, this way... take about 10 minutes.. but it took 40 minutes.. not sure if they can do that in 10 minutes.

Saw this group of people dancing behind bars..in 2'C at 9am while walking to the Zoo..

This is the Penguin part of the Zoo...

Close up of those penguins.. not really active sort of penguin.
Not sure what's so nice about them that I need to pay RMB10 on top of the entrace fee of RMB100 to see them... hmmph.

Had my breakfast in the Zoo, a small fast food restaurant inside the zoo, that looks like the Chinese version of McD, ordered a Super Hot Dog, but turned out few times smaller compares to the picture.

Ok, this is the 'Hot Orange juice'... ordered it because I am curious how it would be, turned out... just plain boring Hot orange juice.

Some kids playing outside the aquarium

Had to take this picture... just curious how it would be like in summer.

Some river frozen up.. I actually went down to try out the ice.. and its still hard and slippery

Another picture of another river..

This is one river that is not frozen.. so I took a picture of it.

Met this mermaid outside the Beijing Aquarium

If you haven't figured out, this is the face of some kind of stone fish. Yes, its so messed up.

Nice view.

This is where I jumped down to test if the ice could break.

Some mandarin duck at a small unfrozen pond, looks like there's some heating device to keep the water from freezing.

This Panda is outside enjoying his lunch, too bad can't get too close to feed him some bamboo leaf.

This is the main entrance of the Summer Palace, the guide says this is the only place with the board saying Summer Palace (in mandarin)

Frozen ice on the lake.

Walking on ice across a lake.. this is actually a very big lake, will visit again in summer for another picture, of course, won't be walking across this lake by then.

Some ice broken in the middle of the lake. Still looks safe as the ice is still very thick.

When back to the hotel for a short nap around 4pm.. called up this Lao She Tea House for reservation, a seat in the middle table costs RMB100, the range are from RMB60, 80, 100, 120 and 150.

This is how the Tea House looks like.

Was told to be there by 735pm before the show starts at 750pm, otherwise the seat is freed for walk ins. So left the hotel on a cab at 635pm, and arrived there at 7pm, had plenty of time walking outside on the cold -5' or -6' evening, so I took these pictures. Also, on the same table, met another Malaysian, a Philippino and a Indonesian, all INTI Beijing lecturers.