
The Giant Pandas at the Beijing Zoo

They’re like Koalas – they eat all the time!

Close-up of a Panda eating bamboo

More of the same…

A Little Red Panda running around

What’s that Little Red Panda doing?

I can’t remember what was in this tree but I remember we were all fascinated at the time

Ducks swimming in one of the lakes

View of the other side of one of the lakes

A Polar Bear climbing on top of some rocks

Another Polar Bear resting

Another lake on the way back from the Polar Bear enclosure

A compact car at the zoo that the locals call “the little turlte”

Pants with slits at the back are the go if you haven’t been potty-trained yet

A dragon statue in the first courtyard to the Summer Palace

A bed of peonies along a walkway off the main courtyard

View of an impressive, octagonal, building across the lake

A bridge linking a small island in the lake

Entrance to an imperial bedroom in another courtyard

Picturesque roof-top view from one of the courtyards

Another courtyard view; grassy gardens are very popular in China – they look good, too!

Detail of another doorway

Detail beneath the ceiling from one of the rotundas along the edge of the lake

View from beneath the large octagonal building

Bronze statues are common-place in front of important entrances in China

The pontoon ferrying tourists back to the main entrance of the Summer Palace

The entrance to the building at the foot of the hill below the large, octagonal, building

The restaurant in the building below the large, octagonal, building

The entrance to the men’s toilet at the restaurant – flashy, huh?

I think this is where the emperor’s throne was located during the summer

A view from beside the emperor’s throne area looking up the hill

Detail underneath the ceiling above the emperor’s throne area

Extreme close-up of the detail on the ceiling of a wooden walkway

Detail of the ceiling directly the emperor’s throne

Another view looking up at the octagonal building

Chinese tea ceremony. The best tea I’ve ever had, too!

Ron always made friends with the girls!

A marble boat docked at the Summer Palace (the original was destroyed, unfortunately)

Another view of the marble boat

View of the front of the marble boat (btw, it’s too heavy to actually leave dock!)

View of the octagonal building from the pontoon on the lake

Another island in the middle of the lake

A bridge joining the island close to the main entrance of the Summer Palace

A view of the octagonal building off in the distance

Chinese worker at a cloisonne factory adding detail to some copper pots

Adding the many layers of special paint

Firing the cloisonne vases

The cloisonne shop. This stuff don’t come cheap!

One of those large vases will set you back around $5,000 Australian!

I can’t remember the price of the one in the glass cage; let’s just say that I couldn’t afford it!

Inside the McDonald’s restaurant a few shops down from our hotel

In front of the Chaoyang Theatre

The empty stage, before the performance

Chinese girls twirling rugs in mid-air

Chinese Lion and various performers in balancing acts

Men, and men in lion costumes; I usually took the photo just after the good bit :-(

Again, just after they had performed an amazing somersault!

My trigger finger got a little better for this one!

Four men, in two lion costumes, balancing and moving across the stage on a rubber ball

A boy balancing on a plank of wood and flicking plates onto his head

Balancing before flicking one of the plates

A boy balancing on top of a man and flicking plates onto his head

A boy half way through jumping off the platform held by the balancing man below

Girls twirling discs on the end of bendy-rods

Twirling discs in a stack

Variations on a theme

This was truly amazing! The girls in mid-air were being spun around and juggled back and forth!

The highlight of the evening…

It took quite a run-up to jump and twist through the top ring!

Extreme close-up!

Jumping through the top ring and each other!

You’d be showing off, too, if you were as good as these guys!

About to jump through the middle ring.

A backward somersault through the top ring!

A backward somersault through the fifth, and final, ring!

Two troupes of girls riding together in circles

Doing fancier tricks on the bicycles; you don’t see your average Chinese doing this in the street, though!

Riding in circles standing on top of their bicycles

What a finale!

The End :-(