Under Sundog: Taipei Zoo

Showing posts with label Taipei Zoo. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Weekend in Pictures

Saturday I went back to the zoo so James could have a look. Sunday we strolled around the Ximending area of Taipei and Huashi street. This is what I saw:

I can't get enough of the gibbons!

nap time

weird Santa

Firecracker Remnants

Flowers in the Temple

We saw "Armed Forces Hero House" on the MRT map and thought maybe it was a museum, nope - it's an all-you-can eat vetrans' buffet.

Friday, February 20, 2009

After Modern Toilet and Doggy Poo the movie, I started to think Asians have very different ideas about the social acceptability of talking about certain bodily functions.

Then I went to the zoo, where every single bathroom doubled as an interpretive exhibit on poop.

Do they? Find out while you go!

Um, eew.

Okay, not a bathroom, but I like the sign

Taipei Zoo

To stave off the underemployment blues, I took a solo fieldtrip into the city.

I felt a little lame by myself at the ticketing kiosk amidst a throng of families and grandmas pushing strollers. But I forgot my lameness as quick as I got inside: Taipei Zoo was by far the best zoo I've ever been to.

For more than four hours I took pictures of animals, some I didn't even know existed before today. Here are the highlights:

How do they stand like that?

From Taipei Zoo

I don't know if that's Yuan Yuan or Tuan Tuan, but my grandchildren will probably never have occasion to take a picture of a panda - so I was sure to snap it. Frankly, I don't understand how any species that routinely smothers its newborns made it this far.

Pandas were the biggest exhibit. They're new, a gift from China. The former president rejected them in 2005, but President Ma said yes. "Tuan" means round. I don't know what "Yuan" means. But when you put the two words together they mean "reunion." The People's Republic is crafty like that. This spurred some clever pro-independence panda photoshops, captions like: "I gave up my national sovereignty and all I got were these lousy pandas."