Why I love China: Shanghai Wild Animal Park and why you should always be early in China

One day in China, after thinking about what to do for a long~time, I found a post about Shanghai's Wild Animal Park (not Shanghai Zoo), that talked about all the cool things you can do there, including holding a baby lion or tiger for a photo for only 30 Yuan (that's like 4 € only) , or doing a tour in a car out of which the canivorous animals would be feeded directly (which means you'd get great opportunities for photos).

All excited, Jenny and I decided to go there on one of her free days, after I'd finish my Chinese lessons.

If you ever plan on going there, here's a few things to keep in mind:

Make sure you know exactly how to get there.

You need to take Line 2 (subway) until Zhangjiang Technology park and from there on, either take the bus (which is difficult to find, there are multiple buses and it's all only in Chinese) or a taxi. Taxi can get costly, as the park is pretty much at the outskirts of Shanghai,

Be careful, taxi drivers could try to rip you off (I think that happened to us as our taxi far was over 100 Yuan and many people write that theirs was only about 60Yuan)

And the most important thing:

Get there early.

Opening times may be from 8AM to 5PM BUT...not every attraction is opened all the time.
We got there around 2PM, as getting there took much longer than anticipated (almost 2 hours), and the restaurants were already closed, the spot where you could hold a baby tiger was closed (even though there was a sign that said it would be available until 15.30) and you could only take a normal tour, not the one during which you could feed the animals because the other one was closed already as well T^T

For the long time it took getting there, and the entrance fee (130 Yuan for an adult but you can get a student discount) it was a little bit disappointing. Don't make the same mistake as us, and get there early.

Also, make sure you wear comfortable shoes as you'll be doing lots of walking (unless you rent one of those fun little carts to take you around)

Now onto the fun part:

Cute Animals :D

The first few animals we saw after entering were those little cuties:

I think they are used to people throwing down food for them, because as soon as they saw as they all got really curious and hurried over to the wall and looked up.

so cute x3




After looking at these cuties for a while, we decided to go on. The next part of the park greeted us with King Julian himself :D

The area of the lemurs was actually, for us, the coolest part of the park. Why, you might ask?

Well, simply because you could enter their area.

Much better photo opportunities, right?

He didn't seem to be too excited though.

Sorry King Julian, we didn't bring any snacks for you,

Lemurs are not the most photogenetic animals, apparantly.

But there were lots of them, all relaxing somewhere.

Wondering if you could touch them, I carefully went closer with my hand.

I think one of them thought I had food, because he reached for my hand...and then he held onto my finger.
SO CUTE.

Their hands are tiny, it's just like there's a baby wrapping it's whole hand around your pinky.

I tried the same thing again after he let go, but now that he found out there's no food, he only reached for my hand with his foot instead :D

But hey, not many people can say they've held hands with a lemur, right?

Next up in the area were the young lions and tigers. They weren't fully grown up, and I assume as long as they're still "teenagers" they stay in one area together. The adult ones were in seperate areas, only visible during the bus tour.

They seemed all really healthy, and full of energy as they were playing and running around.

Did I also mention how cute they are?
Look at those big paws! :D

They all went inside at a certain time to get their food.

Each of them got half of a chicken.

The next animal we got to see was a very special one.

A Liger!

Ligers are a crossbread between a male lion and a female tiger. It's one of the largest of all felines and it usually shows characteristics of both parents. Can you see the light tiger pattern on his fur? :D

This one seemed a little bored, he (or she) was walking along the glass windows the whole time, turning around, then walking the same way back and repeating his actions.

Even though I said hi, he didn't seem to care much. The poor guy really seemed bored, probably because he was the only one in his area, and I read that ligers are very sociable animals ;-;

The next part of the zoo, which we had to walk a long~ way to, was inhabited by one of the animals I was looking forward to the most.
Say hi to the pandas :D

They're cute, they're chubby and they're super lazy. All they do all day long is sleep, and eat.

They had 4 of them and those who were not sleeping, were all chewing on bamboo.

And they seemed to be constantly smiling : )

Looks like some sort of Yoga practice, but I bet it's just the easiest way to hold the bamboo :D

This one was just a big ball of black and white fluffiness, he was sleeping all rolled up the whole time.

Our next encounter was with a very pretty, yet very curious giraffe.

I called him Kwangsoo, just because.

For your information, this area is not very much closed off. The giraffes can easily lift their heads over the railing which seperated their area from the walking path for visitors.

So while we stood there, taking photos, the giraffe suddenly noticed us.

And decided to come a bit closer (those photos are not zoomed in)

And closer,

I had to take a step back, afraid it would start chewing on my camera xD

But Kwangsoo quickly lost interest and left, so we did too ^^  Still, it's nice how close you get to the animals there :D

Our next and final stop was at the Bus tour. Originally we wanted to to the one during which you could feed the animals, but like I said before, we were late and so we only had the choice of doing a normal bus tour or nothing at all ;-;

So of course, since it was already included in the zoo entrance ticket, we did that.

You basically sit in a bus which is driven (a little too quickly) through different, secluded areas that include different animal species. The first one was africa themed, and the animals often walked along the street.

But the driver usually got them to move through honking multiple times. (They didn't seem very impressed though)

The areas with the canivorous animals were seperated not with one, but with two gates, so security is actually good there :D

Unfortunately, since we didn't have any food, and the animals knew that (the buses that have food look completely different from the normal ones), most of them didn't get close enough to take photos, which was a little disappointing.

Except for this wet bear, who lazily strolled along the street once.

I hoped you enjoyed looking at all these animals, and if you plan on visiting the Animal Park, I hope this post helped you a little ^^ Which are your favourite animals? Please tell me, and which zoo that you visited was the best so far? :D

Lovely Greetings to you all,
Lydia