First day in Beijing

We are trying to recuperate from our jet lag...well we wake up four a.m. Maybe the kids even earlier. By 7 a.m. we go to the downstairs restaurant for a mix of chinese and western breakfast followed by a little swimming in a nice pool. The weather is overecast so we plan an indoor activity.
Comunication with the chinese is very relaxing starting from the assumption that you don't undestand each other you resort to gesture or nothing. So far only one lady in the hotel speaks english and today I enriched her vocabulary with the word "earplug", she taught me how to say 1313 in chinese I repeated twice, I thought I would remember but I don't.
From the balcony of our room we see three cranes, it seems to be a pretty standard view in Beijing. Mao must considering reincarnating and moving to NY where everything seems a little ancient comparing to here.
In this gloomy-rainy day we might as well satisfied Oscar's desire of one more zoo and acquarium. How many are still there in the world????
The zoo needs a face lift and someone who actually care about these poor animals, the acquarium is more interesting. The kids are super tired and they take naps on taxi on the way there and back. We decide on a serious nap on the way back home...that jet lag really hit us!
By 7:30 we are ready to check out the Wangfuging neighbourhood. We take a walk in a large modern pedestrian avenue burstling with people that enjoy a chinese "passeggiata". Further down we take a narrow alley full of little stands selling all kind of food including crickets on a stick for food, it seems a little touristic but still with most of the people are locals except us andy 15 other caucasians. 
We also adventure ourself in the little grocery store close to the apartment to try to put together a dinner and a breakfast. A very challenging enterprise and forget about reading the labels! On the verge of giving up we find a pre-cooked duck, we finally figure out which one was the milk box and bread "bimbo" the same we were buying in Mexico! Something about globalization does not seem quite right...