Beijing Zoo

So my very last day and last hours in Beijing was spent at the Beijing Zoo. Since I´m in China I wanted to see some panda bears. It would be lovely visiting Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center for example, which is the most popular, but I will have to save that for my next trip to China.

I took all my bags and headed towards the Beijing Zoo. The entrance was CNY 14 (1,9€), and I left my bags next to the entrance for CNY 10 (1,3€). I haven´t been to a zoo for many years, so I thought since I´m here I could give it a try, and what a disappointment.

When I entered the area the park was beautiful. The park has lakes, waterfalls, and is just calming in some way. I would love to have a picnic here and just enjoy. Beijing Zoo has a diverse collection of animals, around 450 species and 5000 animals. The area is huge; you could walk around for many hours, especially if you have children.

However, as lovely and amazing as it may sound, this was one of the worst experiences I´ve had ever. I knew that it was going to be crowded, so I will not complain about that. It´s one of the biggest zoos in China so of course there will be a lot of visitors. This is not what made me frustrated. There are signs everywhere that says: “No knocking on the windows” and “No feeding”, but what do you think is going on? I was surprised since there were no staff/security around to make sure the rules were followed. The Chinese visitors are feeding the animals with whatever they got in their bags. Some people even bought carrots, salad, and dry noodles, which they were feeding the giraffes and zebras with these. This just made me so angry and I almost wanted to scream! If there is a sign and thousands of signs where it says not to feed the animals, why does people still do it?

I must say this was the last time I ever visit a zoo. Ever! I´m so disgusted and I really don´t have anything else to say about this experience. I took a few, and a very few photos that you can enjoy!