The Zoo

We went to the Shanghai Zoo today. I hadn't been to the Shanghai zoo since fieldtrip days in elementary school days, and needless to say, I remembered nothing of what the zoo was like back in those days. The only thing vaguely familiar about the zoo was the smell.

One funny little thing was that they charged me 32RMB for entry fee, for which I got a nice postcard/entry ticket. And my dad who went seperately from us, got a 30RMB plain ticket. Do I have sucker written all over my forehead, or did they judge me by my blonde child and figured I'd like a souveneir ticket, you think? Either way, I'm not complaining. Merely find it amusing.

The boys enjoyed the zoo. It was a nice overcast day, chilly, but not too cold. The zoo is much bigger than I remembered, and it's a lot like the DC zoo, where the animals are far away for the most part, and far apart, so there's lots of walking involved.



The most beautiful part of the zoo is Swan Lake. There were elegant swans (both black and white), cute and colorful water fowls, as well as huge pelicans that gracefully glided above water.



The lone panda was protected behind glass, so it was hard to take pictures, but it was right next to the glass and wasn't at all afraid of all the glaring flashlights and excited people pointing and chattering at him.



The Lesser Pandas were much closer. They loved being fed food and the kids loved feeding them. They would stand up to reach for the food. Same with the small black bears.



The seal was a favorite of the boys. It caught balls, rings and fish with ease. It even stood on its fin! What a hoot!

We only went through half the zoo before the boys and my dad were hungry and Jared was tired and grumpy.

The pics are up. I was able to upload them onto flickr via the uploader, but can not connect to flickr directly to add comments or grab the links of the pics, due to the earthquake problem. Will do that later.