Beijing Zoo / Aquarium

Our first day in Beijing was wet and gray. We decided to go to the zoo and aquarium since we thought going sightseeing in the rain would not be tremendously enjoyable, as we learned in Tokyo. Our tickets were expensive because we decided to do the whole package - zoo, pandas, and aquarium. I wanted to start off with the aquarium since it was what I wanted to see the most, but instead we decided to start with the zoo and do the aquarium last (always save the best for last!). We made it to the reptile house, where we saw a bunch of snakes and lizards. When we walked out we were on our way to the penguin house. The lady asked for our tickets and as I reached into my pocket I realized both disappeared. After a minute, we decided to retrace our steps and look for the tickets as we had not gone too far. On the way back, I found only one, thinking that someone else snatched the other. Instead of giving up, I decided that we should go all the way back to the reptile house to see if I had dropped it there. Lucky me, I found it within minutes. Success! Both tickets were in my hands and stuffed into my fanny pack so they would not get lost again.

Towards the end of the day we were ready to see the pandas, which of course are a seprate exhibit because they're super cool (and cute). As I reached into my fanny pack I realized that I didn't feel any tickets. I unloaded it and reloaded it about 3 times finding it impossible that I had lost them a second time. I started swearing because it was just so ridiculous. The tickets weren't cheap and it was the one thing I wanted to see more than anything else, but we had no tickets. Again. We couldn't retrace our steps this time because we had gone too far and it would have been impossible to find them.

As I was moping through the panda area, which I couldn't even enjoy, Mike had a brilliant idea to ask random people if we could use their aquarium tickets had they already seen it. After a few tries, we finally found a family who had tickets and were happy to give them to us. While this was all happening, I felt like I was scamming people because I had a cover story and everything, except it was true. It went something like: "Hi, I have a very strange question for you... You see, we seemed to have lost our tickets. Twice. We were wondering if you bought any for the aquarium and wouldn't mind giving them to us if you've already seen it." I felt bad asking, but it only got worse from there. When we got inside the aquarium, we didn't realize they would scan the tickets. So, of course, when they scanned ours it beeped saying we were already in there and couldn't come back in. This is where Mike and my acting skils came in. I was arguing with the lady saying we went out for lunch and wanted to come back in. She said it was for one use only. I looked even more pissed off raising my voice saying that we paid lots of money and want to come back in because we stepped out to get some food. Meanwhile, Mike is looking frustrated in the background, helping me look more convincing. Seeing both of us, the lady sort of panicked and went to a higher authority and I guess he told her it wasn't worth it and should just let us in. And that's how we scammed-but didn't-the Beijing Zoo.