Tuesday we took bus #31 in the other direction, past a walmart and several malls. I can't wait to explore them! We got off at Happy Valley, an amusement park. A lot of attractions, parks and the buses are free for the elderly, aged 65+. So far we haven't paid for the kids yet either. Yes it was a bit to cold to normally go to an amusement park and it wasn't full, off season? The kids area was a bug theme! First we rode spinning hot air balloons and my head and stomach didn't like this rides. Then we went on a bumpy four-wheeler, tea cups and frogger. I'm glad the frog hop was a kid only ride. My favorite, the carousel, was freezing cold, I had to sit on my mitten and let one hand freeze. It was in the shade. The poor worker was jumping up and down the whole time trying to keep warm.
It would be fun to go to with my hubby when he comes back, as long as someone watches the kids so we can go on the bigger rides.
Wednesday we took bus #31 in the other direction, to ride the subway, transferred to a different line to go to the Beijing Zoo!. They've got re-loadable cards to use for payment when riding both the bus and subway. It gives a discount on the bus from 100 to 40. All bags/purses must go through a scanner before you go through the gate to the subway. They have 1 person watching the scan, this diligent worker was talking to another co-worker over her shoulder. So glad she has eyes in the back of her head to watch the screen. At the zoo we saw some sleepy pandas and one really energetic one. I've never gone to a bigger zoo in the off season, so i don't know what our polar bear exhibits look like, but it was sad to see the polar bear sitting on a slab of concrete and no water to swim in. Having seen "No Water for Elephants", I was really saddened for the elephant in his tiny cell. It made me think of something I heard somewhere about people's (selfish) need to see animals in the flesh, instead of letting them survive in the wild where they belong. The elephants at the Toledo Zoo have it a lot better! They had so many statues of animals to sit on or take pictures with, not like our token one, but like 20 wolves, 20 penguins, 20 monkeys and about 40 varying sizes of elephants. I saw more happy faces looking and sitting on the statues than seeing the poor caged elephants or lone wolf curled up in its hole it dug in the empty cage void of any vegetation or sky above.
Afterwards we had pizza. Yeah! I choose the tuna pizza with onions & tomatoes. This sauce as well was overly sweet. They only have real tomatoes, ketchup & tomato paste at the store, no italian spices to make spegetti for the kids. I'm doubting the pizza places have the right spices too.
We tried to take a taxi home, but 4 in a row said no, max 4 people in a taxi. We've road 3 adults and 3 kids before and normally 2 adults and 3 kids and tried to do this combo. But no only 1 adult with the 3 kids. Luckily the kids wanted another adventure of the subway!
Emperess Penguin
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