The Zoo of Doom
This morning I got to sleep in until 8am, since the first activity of the day was at 9.
We had a practical Chinese lesson that was in our actual classes. My class is 220 (Lower second year) with Lu Laoshi. In case I haven’t mentioned it: Laoshi means teacher. Lu is the surname.
The lesson was more of a session to sign for your books, and get the handouts for the next week. We also got a lot of homework that will be due on Monday.
After the class we were free until six, so I went to the Beijing Zoo to “Discover Beijing” with some of my pengyou (friends). The Zoo isn’t very far from school, and it is pretty cheap... But they wouldn’t accept my TAMU student ID for an additional 5 kuai discount. So sad.
The Zoo itself is pretty sad. The first thing we saw was this huge pond full of all types of fowl. The pond was mostly frozen over, all of the birds were migratory, and none of the birds would be found together naturally. I felt bad for them all. Then we saw a house for the flamingos, which was bursting at the seams. The large mammals all had sad looking pens, and the number of people feeding animals was obscene. The large cats were perhaps the worst off; some of them had outdoor enclosures, while the rest were stuck in tiny concrete cells. PETA would have a fit. On the plus side, I have never been that close to a lion before in my life.
The only animals that seemed to have nice enclosures were the xiongmao (pandas).
After the Zoo I went to look at cell phones (they aren’t cheap here either), and then we had another Yunnan travel session. This time we had a lottery to see who got to go on which trips. I got my first choice (C), the trip to southern Yunnan that focuses on the socio-economic impacts or damns and modernization in Yunnan province.
After that we went to eat at the Muslim minority restaurant... I forgot that name of the group. They have good food, and Naan.
We had a practical Chinese lesson that was in our actual classes. My class is 220 (Lower second year) with Lu Laoshi. In case I haven’t mentioned it: Laoshi means teacher. Lu is the surname.
The lesson was more of a session to sign for your books, and get the handouts for the next week. We also got a lot of homework that will be due on Monday.
After the class we were free until six, so I went to the Beijing Zoo to “Discover Beijing” with some of my pengyou (friends). The Zoo isn’t very far from school, and it is pretty cheap... But they wouldn’t accept my TAMU student ID for an additional 5 kuai discount. So sad.
The Zoo itself is pretty sad. The first thing we saw was this huge pond full of all types of fowl. The pond was mostly frozen over, all of the birds were migratory, and none of the birds would be found together naturally. I felt bad for them all. Then we saw a house for the flamingos, which was bursting at the seams. The large mammals all had sad looking pens, and the number of people feeding animals was obscene. The large cats were perhaps the worst off; some of them had outdoor enclosures, while the rest were stuck in tiny concrete cells. PETA would have a fit. On the plus side, I have never been that close to a lion before in my life.
The only animals that seemed to have nice enclosures were the xiongmao (pandas).
After the Zoo I went to look at cell phones (they aren’t cheap here either), and then we had another Yunnan travel session. This time we had a lottery to see who got to go on which trips. I got my first choice (C), the trip to southern Yunnan that focuses on the socio-economic impacts or damns and modernization in Yunnan province.
After that we went to eat at the Muslim minority restaurant... I forgot that name of the group. They have good food, and Naan.