Beijing Zoo (北京动物园)

From the Olympic Stadium, there are 10 Subway Station in between the stadium and the Beijing Zoo (动物园站)subway stadium. As always, RMB(¥)2.00 is the fare from one station to another. The Beijing Zoo used to be It was part of the estate of Prince Fu Kang'an during the Qing Dynasty.  It is opened since 1906, and has many rare species such as pandas, penguins and zebras. The main attraction to the Zoo has to be the pandas. The zoo has been a centre for zoological research as well as breeding centre for some rare animals. It is really feels like walking like a park more like a zoo where there trees, lakes and of course animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the entrance does not look like your normal zoo entrance.

Map of the Beijing Zoo.

The fee to enter the Zoo is RMB(¥)25.00, this includes the visit to the Panda house. However for entrance to other sites such as aquarium and penguin house additional fee is imposed and the tickets can be purchased before entering these houses.

 

Some views of the Zoo. This is only the entrance of the Zoo. No animals on sight yet.

Water Cube (北京国家游泳中心)

The Water Cube swimming complex is situated next to the Birdnest Stadium. It was a large blue colored cube-shaped building which is used as the swimming sports location during the Beijing Summer Olympics. It is beautiful in blue.

 

Overall, the Olympic site is very large. It was tiring to walk from the subway station to the actual stadium even though the weather was nice. Well then, off to see the Pandas.

Birdnest’s Stadium

The Summer Olympics 2008 was held in Beijing. One of the notable things about the events are the stadium specifically built for the event. The two main stadiums, the Wate Cube Complex and the Birdnests’ Stadium is now a main tourist attraction due to its unique architecture. A new subway line was built for the stadiums. Line 8 of Beijing Subway (奥运支线) aka Olympic Branch Line. The line is connected directly to Line 10 where my hotel is situated and therefore I would only have to stop at the exchange station at Beitucheng (北土城). As always the fare is RMB(¥) 2.00. Started early in the morning. It is a bit chilly but was really comfortable for walking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The journey from the hotel to the Olympic Stadium takes about 45 minutes and the distance from the subway station to the stadium was around 800 meters. It was very cloudy and as it was the weekend there was quite a number of people visiting the place.

Images from outside the stadium. One word..AWESOMEness. The inside of the stadium is also open for visitation. I paid RMB(¥) 25.00 for the tickets.

The inside of the stadium is huge. They also had a segway ride on the tracks but the ride costs RMB(¥) 140.00 which is too expensive even though it would totally be kick-ass to ride on one of those segways..<sigh>. However these are pix from the inside of the stadium.

 

It was quite a chore to take my own picture but through sign languages I managed to ask a few strangers to take my photos and one couple actually want me to take their photos as well.

Beijing Day 2 – 10/10/10

 

Someone told me that I have to see the panda when I am here…and buy her a panda as well.. . So today I’ll have to do that then..

Ending Day 1

Reached the hotel around 7pm and getting tired due to lack of sleep during flight. Before ending the night, took some pictures of the areas surrounding Renaissance to be explored at a later time.Tomorrow…I have to go see Panda…and Birds’Nest..

I did check the weather for the next two weeks. Its getting colder towards the end of the month.