Hanging my head in shame...
I know, I know...it has been much too long, and I apologize profusely for my lack of updates. I have no excuse besides mere laziness, but let's let bygones be bygones, yes?
Excellent.
Let's backdate this to 5/4, where I believe I last left off.
5/4: Ah, Monday! A new day beginning a new week in a new month. How glorious! But let's be honest, this was weeks ago and I honestly have not the slightest clue what went on, so I'll just improvise. Taylor and I most likely had pizza and watched the latest Game of Thrones episode, and as we knew we had the next day off (Tuesday/Children's Day which is a bank holiday here) we probably stayed up much too late fiddling on our computers.
Now for the main course of this post!
5/5: Children's Day and our first holiday from work in Korea!
Taylor and I woke up rather late and decided we wanted out of the city! We wanted some fresh air and some greenery, so we hopped on the subway and went to Seoul Grand Park (mind you, this is different from Grand Children's Park in Seoul) which was nearish the end of line 4. I had read that it is a nice area, with a nice zoo, gardens, theme park (Seoul Land) and waterpark, ect. Basically everything you could want on a day off, and conveniently right on a subway line, though outside of the bustling city. Whoever wrote the article I read was woefully misleading, as the Seoul Grand Park is one of the most beautiful, awesome, relaxing and fun areas I have had the pleasure of visiting during my time in Seoul! And they made it seem like a 'neat' place. Shame on them.
The very first things you see when you come up from the subway station are trees, vendors, people and MOUNTAINS! Pictures never do them justice, but they were all around us, as if the park was nestled between rolling miles of them, though the city was lurking somewhere, only 50 minutes away via subway.
And of course we got hungry, so chicken-on-a-stick was a must.
More mountains.
A building which we never did go inside, or see the point of, as every sign pointed every direction BUT the building's saying that all the attractions were other ways.
Once we reached the main gates, we decided to head straight to the zoo! :D And why walk when you can glide! The views were magnificent, so excuse the overload of pictures following..
The flowers in Korea are still a-poppin'! At first I thought the above was the greenhouse, which I had read was pretty impressive. I was not impressed. However as we walked around more we found that there was a large greenhouse further back in the zoo which was the impressive one, however we didn't have time to visit it. We will surely be making another trip (or two, or three) out to this area :D
Zebra butts, because they seemed very uninterested in looking at us.
And where in the US can you be so close to a rhino? I suppose I was rather impressed with the enclosures as well.
And as I have mentioned, Korea takes their natural beauty and landscaping very seriously, so here is a random stream going through little corner of the zoo where many families were having picnics, napping or playing on and near the water.
Remember how I said I was impressed by the 'cages' and enclosures at the Seoul Zoo? Well, I raise you our American bird houses, and give you the Giant Bird Cage of Korea. This bird enclosure allowed the birds to fly far and happily, which many of them did, it was pretty neat to be standing under storks and other fowlery (not a real word) as they flew just a couple meters above you!
In the big bird cage :]
A happy elephant who's enclosure companions wandered over to the giraffe's house next door and stuck their noses through the little teeny-wire fence separating them, to which their giraffe neighbors ambled over to say hello as well, and generally had a lovely savanah-esque reunion as we gladly watched.
A rather photogenic camel. (Hump Daaaaaaay)
A ugly, but cool sea lion, who not only swam and then came out before swimming again and then beaching himself a second time while we watched, but also 'played' or maybe fought (?) with his lady friend and roared! Just as Taylor and I were commenting on how he looks a lot more like a sea-bear than a sea-lion (which he really does, the top half of him looks completely brown-bear-like) and how he was incorrectly named, he let out a roar like a lion, and quickly ended that line of our conversation.
As if the bird cage wasn't cool enough, they also had a swampy area fully enclosed for some reptiles, and some monkeys (apparently survival of the fittest is in play here, and the zoo-keepers assume the monkeys will stay away from the crocs).
When you see it...
This monkey seemed to like watching us as much as we liked watching him, though making prolonged eye contact with a monkey is a strange experience to say the least. They are a lot more similar to humans than I guess I ever realized. The little guy above jumped and swung around without even looking, so quick it made me wonder if a human with the same build could process their movements fast enough to have the same accuracy.
As the sun went down Taylor and I got tired and decided to head for home :)
Ground view of the gliders..
And here are some additional pictures of the zoo that I cannot claim as my own, but does show (with a better photographers eye) the coolness that Tay and I experienced on our first Korean holiday.
This one is for Chelsea :P
And now you know about the wonders of Korean zoos :D
More to come!
All my love,
Tea
P.s. I forgot to mention two very cool stories about the zoo!
1st: When Taylor and I were passing the lion enclosure, which was HUGE, beautiful and full of lions (we counted over 20, though we didn't walk around the entire enclosure to be sure, because again, it was HUGE) most of them were sleeping, however one that I had pegged as the alpha lion (total guess, I am not a lion expert) started dreaming (or maybe just got bored) and roared a little, then he roared a little more, and a bit more, then others began to join in, and before we knew what was happening, all the sleeping lions (except the one Taylor had pegged as his favorite, who was sleeping on his back, feet up in the air like Grimm does when he is completely unconscious, and totally ignoring the roars of his fellow-lion) started roaring! It was so powerful and impressive! We could not only hear the roars, but feel their vibrations. Almost 20 lions roaring is something I never thought I would hear in person. Especially not in Korea.
2nd: Which may have cured me of my monkey fear, was the last stop of the zoo (I didn't write or take photos of all the animals, like the many different kinds of coyotes, wolves, raccoon-dogs, ect) was the monkey house, which apparently is very cool during the day, but as we were pushing the zoo's close-time, was deserted with the lights off (but the doors were unlocked, we aren't miscreants). We walked in not even sure if it was an exhibit, as there were no signs or workers or even people! Inside there were glass walls looking out into darkness. The lights both in the enclosures and outside (in our section) were off, but we did manage to see a little humanoid palm pressed against the glass. Upon further inspection, we saw that the little palm was attached to a chimp preparing for bedtime. As we watched (our faces pressed against the glass so we could barely see him and he probably couldn't see us - no lights, remember) he grabbed a blanket, placed it around his shoulders and flopped over, rolling into the length of it to cocoon himself before making a little pillow with his hands for his head. It was the most human thing I have ever seen a non-human do!
The next blackened glass we came too was a bit creepier, possibly enough to reinstate my pithecophobia. There was a chimp in a swinging chair, juuuust barely visible through the dim, with his back to us. All we could really see, due to the chair blocking him, was a distorted humanoid hand reaching up and pulling on a rope as the chair swung slightly in the dark...but then my phobia-radar swung back towards remission as we watched a short video still playing that showed a chimpanzee playing a memory game, and frankly doing loads better than any human I know could have done (no insult meant to my friends). The monkey played numerous games (with increasing difficulty-levels). The most impressive was when the screen flashed numbers 1-19 at the chimp for less than a single second on a grid, then the grid went blank and the monkey tapped each square, starting with where the 1 had been, in ascending order up to 19. Whenever he tapped too sloppily and the square didn't light up he would backtrack and re-tap to be sure he was correct before continuing on to the next number in the sequence. How cool! I found myself trying to memorize where the numbers were, but in only a second I couldn't capture a permanent-enough picture in my mind to do as well as the monkey had.
Excellent.
Let's backdate this to 5/4, where I believe I last left off.
5/4: Ah, Monday! A new day beginning a new week in a new month. How glorious! But let's be honest, this was weeks ago and I honestly have not the slightest clue what went on, so I'll just improvise. Taylor and I most likely had pizza and watched the latest Game of Thrones episode, and as we knew we had the next day off (Tuesday/Children's Day which is a bank holiday here) we probably stayed up much too late fiddling on our computers.
Now for the main course of this post!
5/5: Children's Day and our first holiday from work in Korea!
Taylor and I woke up rather late and decided we wanted out of the city! We wanted some fresh air and some greenery, so we hopped on the subway and went to Seoul Grand Park (mind you, this is different from Grand Children's Park in Seoul) which was nearish the end of line 4. I had read that it is a nice area, with a nice zoo, gardens, theme park (Seoul Land) and waterpark, ect. Basically everything you could want on a day off, and conveniently right on a subway line, though outside of the bustling city. Whoever wrote the article I read was woefully misleading, as the Seoul Grand Park is one of the most beautiful, awesome, relaxing and fun areas I have had the pleasure of visiting during my time in Seoul! And they made it seem like a 'neat' place. Shame on them.
Once we reached the main gates, we decided to head straight to the zoo! :D And why walk when you can glide! The views were magnificent, so excuse the overload of pictures following..
All of the above are unedited, so the vibrant colors you see are how they actually appeared, though in all honesty they were probably even better, being limited by my little iPhone camera.
And of course, we had to take some selfies as well. And finish up our elegant meal of chicken-on-a-stick with potato-on-a-stick, since Taylor hadn't had the joy of trying one yet...
Once we got off out lovely glider, we were at the entrance to the actual zoo, and not just the park. Prepare for even more photos..
Giant fish which were both cool and terrifying, and the reason I do not trust dark waters...
A lot of the animals were much closer (and more active/less hide-and-seek-ish) than animals in US zoos, in fact we saw a lot more activity/howls/'fights'/playing/roars and general animal-like behaviors in Seoul's zoo than we ever have in the States.
We caught these little guys on their lunch break..
Here are some creepy crawlies for you! Taylor and I exited the insect house feeling a little less enthralled with nature than I had upon my entrance.
I apologize for the terrible image quality of above, but the bat house was one of the coolest parts for me, even if it was impossible to snap a good picture. And you could get riiiiight up to the glass and peer into the life of these awesome critters. They were also in their feeding time and we got to watch them flapping around nibbling on fruit, which was adorable. I love bats. Their like little cute rodents who have the blessing of flight! How cool, right? Right.
Now usually I would have stopped the poor image quality with the bats, but the porcupines had a pup! (see in the corner) which was adorable and funny looking and clumsy so I had to share. Have you ever seen a baby porc-u-pup? Well, now you have.
And next door, ignoring the boastful roars of it's neighbor; the seals! They seemed quite happy and active, if a bit difficult to snap a picture of.
And here are some additional pictures of the zoo that I cannot claim as my own, but does show (with a better photographers eye) the coolness that Tay and I experienced on our first Korean holiday.
Literally the thing of nightmares ^^
And now you know about the wonders of Korean zoos :D
More to come!
All my love,
Tea
P.s. I forgot to mention two very cool stories about the zoo!
1st: When Taylor and I were passing the lion enclosure, which was HUGE, beautiful and full of lions (we counted over 20, though we didn't walk around the entire enclosure to be sure, because again, it was HUGE) most of them were sleeping, however one that I had pegged as the alpha lion (total guess, I am not a lion expert) started dreaming (or maybe just got bored) and roared a little, then he roared a little more, and a bit more, then others began to join in, and before we knew what was happening, all the sleeping lions (except the one Taylor had pegged as his favorite, who was sleeping on his back, feet up in the air like Grimm does when he is completely unconscious, and totally ignoring the roars of his fellow-lion) started roaring! It was so powerful and impressive! We could not only hear the roars, but feel their vibrations. Almost 20 lions roaring is something I never thought I would hear in person. Especially not in Korea.
2nd: Which may have cured me of my monkey fear, was the last stop of the zoo (I didn't write or take photos of all the animals, like the many different kinds of coyotes, wolves, raccoon-dogs, ect) was the monkey house, which apparently is very cool during the day, but as we were pushing the zoo's close-time, was deserted with the lights off (but the doors were unlocked, we aren't miscreants). We walked in not even sure if it was an exhibit, as there were no signs or workers or even people! Inside there were glass walls looking out into darkness. The lights both in the enclosures and outside (in our section) were off, but we did manage to see a little humanoid palm pressed against the glass. Upon further inspection, we saw that the little palm was attached to a chimp preparing for bedtime. As we watched (our faces pressed against the glass so we could barely see him and he probably couldn't see us - no lights, remember) he grabbed a blanket, placed it around his shoulders and flopped over, rolling into the length of it to cocoon himself before making a little pillow with his hands for his head. It was the most human thing I have ever seen a non-human do!
The next blackened glass we came too was a bit creepier, possibly enough to reinstate my pithecophobia. There was a chimp in a swinging chair, juuuust barely visible through the dim, with his back to us. All we could really see, due to the chair blocking him, was a distorted humanoid hand reaching up and pulling on a rope as the chair swung slightly in the dark...but then my phobia-radar swung back towards remission as we watched a short video still playing that showed a chimpanzee playing a memory game, and frankly doing loads better than any human I know could have done (no insult meant to my friends). The monkey played numerous games (with increasing difficulty-levels). The most impressive was when the screen flashed numbers 1-19 at the chimp for less than a single second on a grid, then the grid went blank and the monkey tapped each square, starting with where the 1 had been, in ascending order up to 19. Whenever he tapped too sloppily and the square didn't light up he would backtrack and re-tap to be sure he was correct before continuing on to the next number in the sequence. How cool! I found myself trying to memorize where the numbers were, but in only a second I couldn't capture a permanent-enough picture in my mind to do as well as the monkey had.
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