Taipei to OURSELVES! (Trip to the Taipei Zoo)

Yes, I realize Taipei proper is home to probably over 3 million people, while the larger Taipei area is probably in the neighborhood of 7 million, but when everyone works and puts their kids in school from morning to night, it's easy to feel when we are out mid-day that the place is OURS! (Which is just how we like it.)

Casperson tradition held true, and for our trip to the Taipei Zoo today, we had rain, rain, rain. Aside from a few serious downpours, some of which we managed to be indoors for, it was just a lovely drizzle to keep things cool and the animals LIVELY!

We took the MRT from our end of the city all the way to an opposite corner - a voyage which took over 1 hour - and arrived just after 11am. To our delight, the zoo only cost $2/adult and $1/child. I guess the downside of our relaxed American attitudes towards work-day recreating drives prices up at comparable American destinations. Who has ever heard of $2 admission to a country's premier zoo!?! And we seriously had the run of the place! I joked that if you wanted to go to the zoo, it would be cheaper to FLY to Taiwan and go to the zoo here. Q joked that the money you saved traveling to Taiwan's zoo would be blown on fruity drinks and delicious street food. True, true.

Anyway, it was a great day, and Rachel's choice to celebrate her 18th B-day! I hope it was a hit.

We lucked out and took this "train" first thing inside the zoo. It dropped us off at the top and the rest of the walk throughout the entire zoo was more or less downhill!

I am not a big zoo fan, myself. This would not have been on my to-do list of destinations to take in. (We have both animals and zoo's in the states, right?) HOWEVER, between the proximity we got to the animals, their activity level, and the price of admission, I was absolutely DELIGHTED!!! (I didn't post all the pics, but for memory's sake, the lions were doing a fabulous roar, the brown bear was pacing, and we got pretty close to the giraffe, pandas, and elephant in addition to the pics of the animals I've posted!)

This guy looked right at the camera for me.

THIS is how close the kids were to him!

Except for the glass, Stew might have reached out to touch a tiger.

Even the wild-life outside of the enclosures is impressive!

If there was any worry we misinterpreted, check out the derriere next to Veeve's raised fist.

Finally, I think I have solved the mystery of bizarre bodily function info-graphics. I think it's just a complete cultural casualness with going the bathroom. (Case in point: walking out of a women's restroom in McDonalds, I had a full view, less privates, of a man relieving himself in the men's room. This was SO shocking to me, I almost wanted to take a picture, but that seemed in worse taste than the pictures of the info-graphics I've posted. Anyway, now I know the facial expression of a man relieving himself. Swell.) But back to my point, THIS display was at the zoo. From the context of the whole thing, it was probably explaining how all excrement becomes fertilizer for the world.




HOORAY! Now we can turn a little turd into a super hero cartoon! Just what the world (and my blog!) needed!

The Super Turd is to the left of Big Bro's hips.

ANYWAY...

One little is clearly bushed at the end of our zoo trip.

Near the zoo is another gondola, and I was campaigning to ride it while we were in the neighborhood. When Q pointed out it was nearly 3:30 in the afternoon, that ended that campaign, but I was blown away by the time! I think I must still not be fully adjusted. It felt like 10:30am to me. (I wasn't the only one. I was so surprised it was so late, I asked Big Bro what time he thought it felt like. He said 10am without hearing from me first what time I thought it was.) Maybe we're just really rested today?

Anyway, we tried to beat the post-work-day traffic home so we could sit for our hour ride. We got on the train at about 4pm and who should we find there, but the sister missionaries! They told me what MRT stop was nearest the temple, so perhaps we'll get to make a go of it soon! They helped us sing Happy Birthday to Rachel on the train, and enjoyed the extended Ackerman version.

For Rachel's b-day dinner I stopped by a shop for what are like elongated, fried pot stickers, just down from our home MRT station. I met the rest of the fam back at home and we managed finally to crowd all 7 of us around the table. Rachel is now out on her OWN adventure shopping in Tamsui. (Except she went the wrong way on the MRT, so she is hopefully NOW arriving in Tamsui after hopping back on the train!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHEL! THANKS FOR AMAZING MEMORIES!