So in the middle of all the drinking and eating, someone got the urge to see some animals in captivity. Reasoning being, if you as foreigners feel unique (translated to, feel like specimens, in a good sense!) in this country, how do the animals feel here?! Hence started the plan to go to a zoo nearby in Shanghai. Most of us being the kind who would jump at any opportunity to explore new places, we decided we will go the next day.
Next day came, everyone started as planned, left for the subway station as planned, and even somehow got waylaid to take an international Gallup survey about what foreigners think of the upcoming Beijing Olympics! Unfortunately we didn’t qualify for the entire poll. I guess my friend got one of the answers for the 3 initial questions wrong. The girl said that the survey was over with just 3 questions. Our guess is we got the question about how long we were in China wrong! My friend said 4 months and that’s it, looks like we were not considered foreign anymore, we are now almost an all knowing native Chinese and didn’t qualify for the poll!!
Hmm, yes, back to the zoo (note I am still calling it Zoo and not the park as in the title, you will see why soon!), still everything was going as per plan. That is, until we got to the subway station and realized we did not know where the zoo was! So, here is the deal… someone yesterday night, thought they had seen a subway stop with the word zoo in it and said they knew where it was! Huh, don’t ask! When you are part intoxicated, anything is a great idea and doable!! So we search the whole subway map, don’t find any zoo or park or farm or sanctuary or petting station or even an animal hospital!
Of the four of us, one knew a little bit of Chinese. Enough of Chinese to clobber our destination from the local zoo to the Wild Animal Park outside the city!!! The outside the city part we didn’t realize and decided to follow the directions given by the subway official. So after 2 subway line rides and a long bus ride we found ourselves at the park, 2 hours after we left our homes. Ohh, the bus part was very interesting. People were standing in a queue to board the bus. The bus terminus official was kind enough to take us to the correct queue(because everything was written in Chinese and there were no route numbers!). So we stood in the queue, the bus came and people started boarding. But the queue stopped as soon as all the seats were taken. We waited a bit, looked around and didn’t understand why people stopped boarding. After few seconds of meditation on the issue at hand, we decided to be the usual stupid-foreigners, jumped over the railings and got into the bus. Suckers! Aahh, but wiser were they who stayed put and waited for the next bus. Little did we know that it was a long ride. To aggravate it, we were stuck in traffic for the next 1 hour. So, we being the suckers now, happily sat on the floor to the amusement of the entire bus, having no clue how long the bus ride was!
Ofcourse, all the adventure was worth it, because the park was awesome. There were giant pandas, scary ostriches, poop kicking rhinoceros, lions, tigers and bears.
Ohh, to make the day of all the Chinese visitors to the park that day, we were the free bonus attraction that day in the park. I think we generated as much interest as the other animals. Especially since we rented big colorful self ride rickshaws and pedaled around the park. Animal parks are a fancy, red rickshaws in an animal park are interesting, four laowai-s in a red rickshaw in an animal park are certifiably ridiculous, interesting and awfully fancy sight!
And to round off the experience, not just me, Mr. J got ripped too, Chinese style. So I paid 5RMB for a bottle of water when we entered the park. Mr. J came along, looked at the rate I paid and walked away. Immediately the lady offered the water to him for 4RMB. Come on, lady, the idiot that paid 5RMB for the water (that’s me, if you are wondering!) is still standing here! But she got to Mr.J, just when we were leaving the park in the evening. She came running to him offering water for 3 RMB now!!! Mr. J was so touched. One, for she remembering him from afternoon, two, for offering him water for 3 RMB now! Again, yes, you guessed right, suckers!!! As soon as he gave her a 10RMB note for one bottle of water, she promptly dumped 3 bottles of water and 1 RMB change and walked away! So he ended up with 3 bottles of water and 9RMB down just because he was so touched that she remembered him!
That sums up our adventurous trip to the park, which was totally worth it! Thanks to Mr. A for using his 3 month Chinese lessons! He was awesome because, he would get into the taxi, talk to the driver in Chinese, listen intently to the long reply from the driver, nod knowingly, mumble a word or two and turn around and say, "I wish I understood what the driver said!!!" :) Still he got us around without getting too lost! :) Ofcourse I should thank Mr. R, our pro trigger happy clicker, for the pics that I have linked here!
PS: The names have been ambiguated (ha, I have coined a new word in English!) to preserve the secret identities of these spies I roll with! :) Nah, its just to avoid any lawsuit. Two of them are Americans, you know! The third is Nigerian and US settled, so you never know, he might sue too!
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