It's a complete zoo here.

Quinn with the penguins.

Flying dolphins: can you see all 5?

Quinn and the bickering sealion and seal.

Yesterday we joined in the Beijing Kids magazine 2nd Birthday party. It involved pizza and a trip to the Beijing zoo and aquarium, with focus on the pandas, the dolphin show, and the penguin house (all things that are not included in the normal zoo entrance fees.) The pandas were filthy--brown and black, instead of white and black, and were doing what pandas do best: sleep. The dolphin show was pretty neat, although Quinn's school had just gone to see it on Wednesday so he wasn't as excited as he might have been. The penguins were fun, as they usually are, and they had saved feeding time for our group.

The real problem with the zoo here, and the reason we haven't been before, is that it is stuck in the 1950s style of zoo-ing. The animals are in small concrete boxes, with limited ambiance or attempt to give them a "habitat". This includes the prized pandas. The safari zoo we went to in Guangzhou was head and shoulders better, even though the habitat for the tigers included junked out cars (as if the tigers had killed and eaten the safariers.)

The aquarium on the other hand, looked lovely. But I did ask Chip where the attached restaurant was. We see so many fish on display in restaurants, that the aquarium was like a really well stocked kitchen. Not that I've ever seen a kitchen serving grouper! Those things are huge.

This video is of the creepy robot rickshaws that you could pay to ride. It looks like this kid is being pulled around by Chucky the evil doll.

he