没事 (Mei Shi) No Problem: The Dalian Zoo

The Dalian Zoo

One of our last days in Dalian, we decided to go to the zoo. We had actually planned to go to the zoo on the first day, but then the sneaky taxi driver talked us into going on a wild adventure into the unknown and we ended up at the safari park. On this day, we would not have such a situation.

The Dalian zoo is huge compared to other zoos I have visited. It takes up an enormous area of land in the middle of the city and actually has some mountains inside. One day in the zoo is enough for any person to be tired. It is not the case that the zoo is congested though, you have to walk long distances between animals. The environment for some of the animals is suitable, but like most zoos, the larger animals do not have enough space to move. You could see some of the really big animals starting to go a bit wacky and walk around in circles just so they could move. Another thing that was interesting is that they had some baby tigers in a cage that you could pet (for a fee) and right next to that, they had a full grown tiger that you could stand next to and get your picture taken (for a fee). According to Jiao Jiao, at a smaller provincial zoo, this same activity had resulted in the death of a child. It makes sense, not only do they put the tiger on a seat and make it take pictures with people, but between pictures they poke it with sticks and shit. How foolish could they be?

Anyway, they did have some good animals and it was relatively clean. Here are some pictures of animals and then there will be one video of the elephant show, which was excellent. Jiao Jiao participated.