Saturday, August 11, 2007

Taipei Zoo

I had to attend another conference at the school this morning. Afterward, a group of us took the TRA and MRA to Taipei (the train and city metro). The last time I took a train, it was the fast one, but today we took the cheaper and slower local train. The booths look like the ones of Vancouver's skytrain, except that these are wider, longer, and interconnected.

There's a massive underground strip mall at Taipei Main Station, and we walked through part of it till we found a place to eat a late lunch. After lunch we took the MRT again, having to transfer lines once. I took this picture while we were waiting for our ride.
It takes so long transferring between lines because there are so many people here. We somehow made it to Taipei Zoo Station, the last stop on the Muzha line. I always seem to feel the heat more while riding the Muzha line than with other lines.
Those structures on the hills are graves. The cemeteries here are much nicer looking than the ones I've seen in Canada.
It sprinkled off and on throughout the day. Luckily for us, it wasn't unbearably hot or rainy out. We arrived at the zoo in the afternoon, and we took a short trolley tour around the grounds. We then set our explorations afoot.

There were many orchids grafted onto the sides of trees.
Amphibian and Reptile House resident:
It births ping pong balls:
Hippos!
Elands:
Hibiscus:
Our afternoon arrival meant that some of the exhibits were closed by the time we had made our way there. We didn't get to see the Nocturnal Animal House, Insectarium, Bird World, Penguin House, and a few other places. It's a large zoo, and we did manage to cover a lot of ground, but I guess I'll have to go back there again.

How nice that the zoo was open till 9pm tonight. The coloured lights came out, trees glowed purple and green, and children were performing on a nearby stage.
A long day, so we left and drove to a place to eat dinner. Post feeding, our group split up and I and a few others took the MRT and TRA back to Zhongli.

I saw this sign in Taipei. No one follows this rule.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great pictures Elizabeth! I love going to zoos but I haven't been to one with orchids growing everywhere. It doesn't look like anyone is worried about typhoons.

Elizabeth said...

Thanks! The hibiscus picture is upside down. Strange...

Anonymous said...

Hi Elizabeth,

Finally, I was able to access your blogs. The pics and the comments are all very nice and interesting. It seems that you are having a great time. Taiwan is a great and beautiful place, enjoy it while you are there.