Beijing Wild Animal Park

Up at 5:23 because of the alarm.  We got ready and went to breakfast.  At 7 we were in the van headed to Beijing to the Wild Animal Park. None of us were overly excited to go but we wanted to do something to keep us busy.  It was super foggy so we weren't sure if the road would be open.  Todd asked if the road was open and Mr. Xue said yes but we headed out on a different road anyway.

We got to the park at 9:10.  Easy drive.  Todd got the tickets and we headed in.  Our first impression was the park was big and seemed to be pretty nice.  We were walking around and Cameron saw little carts to drive.  He asked if we could drive them and we said probably not.  He said "Come on, we have to drive one of those at least once in China".  We walked over to check it out.  We realized we could get a bucket of veggies and drive the cart through an enclosure and feed the animals.  Cool.

The entrance.

That water doesn't look very clean.

We were hoping Cameron didn't get attacked.

Todd paid the money and we got two carts and two buckets of food.  We headed out.  Cameron was driving and I was riding with him.  We stopped at several pens and fed the animals.  So cool.  There was a nice path to drive on and the animals seemed well taken care of. We were having fun.

We are going in.

Cameron was excited to drive.

Cute llamas.

Todd's new car.

Funky looking deer.

This is a compact car.

Cameron had to push us since we didn't have reverse.

Next we drove into a big gated pen where animals were roaming freely.  Oh no.  I wasn't big on this but we didn't have a choice.  We started in and we were throwing carrots.  Next thing a BIG llama was approaching along with deer and goats.  Cameron stopped our cart and we were swarmed. Cameron tried to drive away but got off the path into dirt.  We were stuck.  Animals everywhere.  Me screaming.  I was filming so I'm pretty sure that will be funny to watch and listen to.  The BIG llama slobbered on me and stuck his head in our bucket and ate everything.  Then the deer with his antlers stuck in my stomach tried to get more veggies which were gone.  The guard guy took his sweet time walking over to us swinging his stick. Another guy came on a motorized cart.  They finally got the animals away and got our cart back on the path.  They were laughing.  I'm sure it was funny watching us...Me!

Getting our car out of the dirt.

A little too close for comfort.

Todd didn't get attacked.

This llama is the guy that chased us and he was after Todd.

We continued on our way and I told Cameron not to stop the cart again if there were animals around. We were almost at the end and we were watching Todd feed the animals.  All of a sudden the BIG llama was charging after us again.  Cameron floored it...as fast as the slow cart could go.  The llama stopped and we went to the exit to wait for Todd.  Phew, I was never so happy to be out of an animal enclosure before.  I was stressing but it was funny.

Todd bought more veggies for each of us since the hogs ate all of ours.  We continued on the path. There were some free roaming animals but these guys weren't as aggressive.  They just slowly walked around.  Except for one white deer.  He just kept haunting us.  Every time we stopped he was there.  It was hilarious.

We stopped at a cage that had 3 small bears in it.  The cage was not big enough but the bears didn't look bad.  They just needed a little more room to play.  Maybe they don't live in the cage all the time. Who knows.

We continued on the path feeding the animals.  We were finally at the end.  We dumped all the rest of our food into a pen before exiting.  We turned our carts in and started rehashing everything that just happened.  Too funny.

We walked around.  There were all kinds of pens and enclosures for animals.  For the most part I would say they all looked pretty good.  The enclosures were nothing fancy but they seemed adequate and relatively clean.  There weren't any animals we looked at that we thought looked bad.

Good thing the sign says Keep Away.

A butterfly landed on Cameron.

Cameron wanted to take his clothes off.

We bought tickets and got in line for a safari ride.  As the truck came in they stopped to put chicken on the side in a box and poured carrots all over the bed of the truck.  We got inside the caged truck with 20 of our Chinese friends and started our journey.  The guy drove fast in the parts there weren't any animals.

The first animals we ran into were bears.  One giant bear stood up and worked on getting the chicken out of the box.  He finally got it. We were feeding carrots to the bears too.  One bear climbed up on the cage and stood there, spread eagle like he was being frisked by police.  He was right in front of us.  Good thing he didn't decide to pee or anything.

The bear trying to get the chicken.

Grabbed the carrot.

Please let me come with.

The sign in the vehicle...Don't feed the animals.

We continued driving.  Todd gave us the idea to stick the carrots in the small spaces of the cage so the animals could grab them instead of us feeding them.  Worked out great.  It was fun to see all the different animals...deer, ostrich, bear, tigers, boars, and llama.

Cameron loading up the cage with carrots.

Cameron had to have his picture with the zebras for Grandma Janet.
She hates zebras for some reason.

After the safari we continued walking around the park.  They had some shows going on but none of us wanted to watch them.  We finally made it back to the front gate at 12:00.  The Beijing Wild Animal Park was a great place to spend a couple of hours checking out animals.  I'm glad we decided to go.  We definitely had a bunch of laughs.

Is this a kiosk or a kisok?  Hmmm.

The bathroom where I went potty.

Oh man, we were just about to ride this guy.

We found Mr. Xue and headed back to TEDA.  We decided we needed a little lunch. Me stopped off at a mall to get McDonalds.  We don't think Mr. Xue wanted that but after the craziness of trying to find a parking space and then trying to find McDonalds, we think he decided it would just be easier for him to eat there too.

Lunch time.

Back in the van and headed home.  Got back to the hotel.  We grabbed a few things then walked to Ashanti to pick up our giant steaks to grill.  We headed to the apartment for our very last "real" TEDA dinner.

Todd grilled the steaks.  I made beans and chicken rice.  We had one knife so Todd had to cut our meat for us.  Pretty funny.  The steaks were delicious.  They were the best ones we have ever had in TEDA. Cameron ate 3/4 of his steak and then said they were ok.  When we asked why he said it was the marinade on them.  It wasn't his favorite but he still devoured it.

Yum.

Last apartment dinner.

We cleaned up and then went back to the hotel. Todd ran to the lounge quickly while Cameron and I took showers.  We then watched the last Die Hard movie.  Off to bed.