Day 9 Thu Oct 13

Another busy day ahead.  In the bus at 8.30am and on thnto the Pandas at the Beijing Zoo.

This is another highlight for the NZ tourists.  We weaved our way north to the zoo and spent an hour at the panda enclosure.  They were cuddle cute animals but everyone forgets they are wild animals.  The chinese have poured lots of money into breeding programmes.  Some facts about the pandas are:

1. Eat arrow bamboo which is brought into the zoo regularly.  This is an expensive exercise hence the need to fundraise to keep pandas.
2. Pandas are rented to various countries for their life.  If they have any young then the young belongs to China.
3. Panda mothers have one baby per year.  If they have two they cannot look after two so usually one dies.  The Zoo tries to get the formula correct for panda babies but yet have not found the right mix.
4. Like cooler temperate climares between -10C and 35C.  Anything above this they get stressed. 
5. Pandas are the top bear in the hierachy of bears.  Brown bears will always step aside  for the panda.
6. Pandas only very active when they are being feed.
7. Only predator is man.
8. Only 1500 pandas left in the world.  We saw 6 of these at the Bejing Zoo

Many souveneirs were purchased knowing that the money goes into helping the panda programme.

Back on the bus and off to look at the Summer place.

The emperor and the family would spend time at the summer palace during the summer season.  They would get there via dragon boats and would enjoy the palace with the protection of the water around them.  The palce had a 960 long corrodor which had paintings of the Beijing area painted in the rafters.  A beuatiful serene walk.  The emperors certainly lived the highlife compared to the masses.

Off to lunch.  Spectacular location.  Inside the banking area of North Beijing.  Very luxurious.

Then we went to a tea house where we learned about chinese tea. 

Tea was used for various healthy reasons.  We tasted Jasmine tea - great for starting the day.  Then we tried a fruit tea-good for keeping happy.  There was an Oblong tea which had a licorice aftertaste and this was good for the bowels????  When you make the tea the first cup of water is firstly thrown awahy and then ready to drink.  The little tea cups allow the tea to remain hot because tea is best hot and brewed at 95C.  Do not let it stew.  Remove the tea.  Using actual tea is much better.  Once again our money passed hands and we brought tea sets and tea.  Was nice!

Many on the tour wanted to continue to purchase, buy so a bus load went back to the markets while 18 of us went to the Olympic stadium.


The birds nest was a marvellous piece of engineering.  As we walked into the stadium on Level 1 the feeling of expanse and that we were in a magnificent was overwhelming.  From anywhere in the stadium you were intimate with the track events that would have been going on.  Some of the group walked around the whole stadium but were disappointed when they couldn't walk or run on the track so they went around the seating area.  The ice cube was across the way and so were two other event areas.  It was a great venue.  The street that gives access to the village was the meridian line that started from the forbidden city.  This line paved starts there and goes for 14km to the Olympic village.  Everything in China has a meaning and a significance and these superstitions and stries have been built up over the centuries of this civilisation.

Off to dinner.  We were treated to Peking duck.  The ducks are feed intensively for two months.  They are killed and then cooked slowly.  They are filled with a water mixture inside and hence went cooked they are poached from the inside out and roasted from the outside in.  The duck was absolutely tender and lovely to eat.  This meal was by far the best.  We had other delicacies as well like abalone and fungus etc.  Was very nice.

We all piled back onto the bus ready for a quiet night in anticipation of going onto the Great Wall of China tomorrow.