Xiaoniu 小妞

We’ve been planning for a trip to the zoo with the kids and finally pulled the trigger (so to say) last weekend. Sue and I brought Emelia and James to the zoo. Even without Caitlin we still had our hands full.

The trip to the zoo was not without event. We got all the way to White Plains where we suddenly saw that the Bronx River Parkway was closed. Not cool. I don’t have a map of Westchester (yet) and we had to find out way out of the city and on to a new highway that lead to the Bronx. Thankfully, I printed the directions out from various locations as was able to approach the zoo from a different direction without too much trouble. I will say that getting to the zoo was much easier than I expected; that area was much easier to navigate and less aggressive than Manhattan.

It took us little time to park and get in. The lines were short as it was early and we had brought out tickets. Sue splurged and got us the total experience tickets that allowed us to do everything except for Camel rides for one price. Not bad.

Our first stop were the Bison. Impressively large creatures.

Then some incredibly large deer. If I read the sign right these are only found in captivity, but used to live in northern China.

Up Tiger Mountain we caught a glimpse of a tiger, but saw very little as it was packed with people.

A very sad looking Polar bear. This makes you second guess if zoos are a good place for some animals.

(One of Sue’s masterpieces) A red panda. Very cool to see in person. It was moving all around.

More of the many species of deer at the zoo.

On our way to the monorail.

The monorail brought us for a nice tour of the southern most part of the zoo. This entire area was only accessible by the monorail. The kids spent a portion of the time eating M&Ms to keep up the spastic energy levels they had.

The beautiful Bronx River. Just beyond all that green is urban city life.

Mongolian wild horses.

We got a better look at another tiger from the monorail.

The one and only elephant that we saw in the entire place.

After the monorail we headed back for a couple orders of chicken strips and fries. Believe it or not that was probably the best deal on food they had. At least we had forethought enough to bring drinks. If you go pack a lunch. The food offerings are mediocre, but pricey.

The one extra that we splurged on were camel rides for the kids (including Sue). Here are a couple of fellows taking a well deserved rest.

The kids on Matthew, the six year old camel. The guy leading the camel told them all about him. I still hear “Daddy I want to see Mathew.”

The entire zoo is open to the peafowl such as this fine looking peacock.

Giraffes

After this we made our way to the butterfly sanctuary.

In the butterfly sanctuary there were some huge fish. These were at least as popular as the butterflies. It was funny being there and knowing just enough Chinese to get the hint of what others are talking about. We heard a guy say the following: 那个不好吃。太老了！(They don’t taste good. They’re too old!) Both Sue and I got a kick out of that.

Posing for pictures outside the butterfly building. I have more of these, but will hold off until later to post them. They’re cute enough to be POTD.

We stood in line for our chance to ride the bug carousel. The kids liked it despite the simplicity of the ride.

Then we hit up the Mouse House, Bug House and Reptile House for some indoor activities. It was quite warm so we made these quick trips. Next up was a trip to the zoo store to pick up a couple small souvenirs for the kids. James got a puzzle (that he later decided he didn’t like because it was too easy (300 pieces!)) and Emelia got a tiger on a stick. Coming close to the end of the day we figured that since we were there and we already had tickets that we should do as much as possible. The last big thing on the agenda was hitting up the Children’s Zoo.

The Children’s Zoo is a zoo within a zoo specifically for little kids (the 10 and under crowd). There were animals and some interactive things. Both James and Emelia enjoyed a simple log that they could crawl through.

James and Emelia crawled the giant spider web.

More pictures, this time with a big set of ears. These were popular and people were pushing their way into the picture.

Lastly up was a petting zoo. We skipped right by and made our way out. By this time Sue was tired and starting to lose her patience and I had a headache despite having more than enough energy.

Last thing on the agenda was making our way home. Instead of making the 10 minute walk we decided to use our tickets to their fullest and ride the shuttle back. We were lucky and made it on and rode around through parts we didn’t see while making our way back to the car. We got out of the zoo and out of the Bronx without incident. We went back out the way we came in, which fortunately for us took on highways and roads that I’ve driven literally hundreds of times. I could have done it with my eyes shut. The kids lasted longer in the car than we expected as they didn’t have a nap and we wore them as much as possible. Emelia slept for an hour and James took a 30 minute nap.

All in all it was a great trip. It didn’t cost too much, wasn’t too far away and the kids had a great time. We didn’t see everything so there will likely be another trip to the zoo in our future, but not too soon. Maybe when Caitlin is a little bigger we’ll take just our girls there to finish up what we didn’t see and to revisit some places we enjoyed most.