On our last day of adventures in Taipei, we began with a visit to the Taipei Zoo. This is no small place, and I’m sure we walked a few miles. It is half a mile from just the front gate to the animals. The zoo design categorizes animals by continent. Sometimes there are two or three enclosed habitats for the same animals. Most of the animal living spaces seem large and safari like in spite of their camouflaged walls, moats, and electric wire. However, even with that, I never felt completely safe from the things like lions and white rhinos. One lion had a roaring spree right after we walked by. The volume of his repetitive roar was bone chilling. I would understand if prey was paralyzed by fear when they heard it!
Pandas have been there since just before we stopped living in Taipei two years ago. It was a lot less crowded this time around and no guard. We were able to stand there much longer, happening to have arrived right before feeding time. Greg took a video of the live Teddy Bear. We thought it was interesting how the panda peeled the bamboo and even then didn’t seem to eat it all before moving on to the next piece.
So many animals of varied cuteness, magnificence, or oddity, but I will only post a few pictures this time around. Descriptions will be below each photo.
This is a type of small deer (here in the zoo) that Greg came across while running in the jungle like parks around and in Taipei.
Besides birds, this was one of the only cages with bars. I’m guessing leopard are just too good at jumping.
Who doesn’t love an elephant?! We were fascinated to watch the one in front play with a softball sized rock in his trunk, rolling it up, knocking it on the cement, putting it in his mouth, over and over, with slight variations each time.
There were three kinds of lemurs in this enclosure, all very active, apparently unaware that they were in a cage or being viewed.
This possibly shows 1/3 of the giraffe quarters. I liked the chocolate color of the guy on the far right… but I didn’t have time to really get to know him.
Another visitor to the zoo who was only there for the warm rocks.
The hippos were all crammed into one corner for feeding time. I don’t recall seeing hippos out of water and was rather shocked by their layers and folds. Very plump!
There are a large variety of birds in the zoo, but most of it was blocked for remodeling. This fellow looks quite military.
This one looks like aliens I’ve seen in the movies.
I know how this one is feeling about his hair…
This crane was all arrogant crankiness. “Just take your picture, then, and let me get back to my nap.”
The Asian sun bear was showing off.
I enjoyed the vibrant rusty orange of this animal.
This monkey seemed to be hunting bugs among the wildflowers, leaving the standard zoo fare alone.
This was labeled “jungle fowl.” Really. I will never look at my chickens that same way again.
This white rhino seemed to want me to know that I should be in dread fear of him, and he is right. There was no sense of warm cuddlies from him.
And here we are “in” North America with the wolves. Seeing them up close makes me even less fond of the idea of repopulating my backwoods with them. The only animal we didn’t go see were the horses. Greg said we have some of those in our backyard and it wasn’t worth the walk.
We ended our visit to Taipei by going to the Ziga Zaga Club in the Grand Hyatt Hotel. This was the hotel we stayed in for our first three weeks in Taipei, when we were looking for an apartment to live in, but we never went to the clubs then, other than to glance into them. The Grand Hyatt is right behind the Taipei World Trade Center, that Greg worked at on Friday, so not very far away from our hotel this time. There was an excellent live band and a lot of tables filled with people for a Tuesday night. Greg and I put on our barefoot shoes, mine being a version of this, and showed what we are made of, just like on the cruise ship, when I also danced for hours in these Vibrams. Vibrams are the only way to dance!
