Well today it sunk in I think, I still havent picked up a knife or fork yet and thats an acheviment in itself, im even getting praises for my chopstick skills from my host family, ive learnt to say hello, goodbye and thank you in mandarin and hopefully learning more everyday. This morning we went to the Beijing Zoo. It took usd 6 hours to see 90% of the zoo in the middle of the day, there was porbably 2000 – 4000 eople there and its not even a holiday, its a weekday. I noticed today that the roads have a lot of LED screens shopwing trafic flow around the place, New zealand could fix a lot of traffic issues if they used the same strategy. with 40 degree weather and smog still i was wearing board shorts and jandlas, the first time in years for wearing jandlas and i got several blisters. I got some good pictures of the pandas and the asian tigers. I’ll put them online tomorrow. I probably saw 200 species of birds and reptiles ive never seen before. I tried peaches the size of watermelons and several brands with questionable orange juice that tasted quite good. After the zoo we went to the new Planetarium, in its own right its the best planetarium in the world with the latest planetarium technology used and I would come back to beijing for just that its that good. because it was so hot we also went shopping, i got some computer gear and a new slevelss shirt (I seen the same sport shirt in NZ for $150 and today it was NZD$26) to help me keep cool during the day. dumplings for dinner and im meeting my host families other relstives tonight. Im still uneasy with driving on the right side of the road, oh and i saw my first other european today, only one though.Tomorrow i’ll have a less busy day and photos will be posted online then. Im planning on going to the great wall on sunday and more shopping tomorrow.