Early morning preparation included reading all Hannah's animal books with her - in the hope of priming her vocabulary for the outing. Unfortunately, most of her books cover pets and farm animals, so she was woefully unprepared for 'rhinosaurus', 'hippopotamus', etc. not to mention the world's largest rodent (you know, the 'Capybara') or local animals such as the Tapir and Kancil.
Other preparation involved packing Daddy's backpack with food, water, diapers, more water, and a couple of Hannah's favourite toys. Then 8.30am came, and it was time to get going. The zoo opens at 9am, and even then the day is starting to get hot.
Driving to Zoo Negara took a reasonable 30 minutes using the MRR2. I had already checked the price of tickets online (RM15 for adults, RM6 for children over 3). Disappointingly, it turns out you also have to pay for parking (RM4) on top of your entrance tickets. As I drove in at 9.05am, the large carpark was deserted. I picked my shady parking spot, and gave Hannah an obligatory change of nappy to start us off nice and fresh.
Once inside, I decided to take things easy and hopped on the free train that does regular rounds of the zoo. We sat for 5 minutes, Hannah got fidgety and indicated she preferred a more 'happening' form of transport. So we hopped back off and set out on foot.
I must say I was pleasantly surprised by Zoo Negara. It is bigger and more stocked with animals than I expected. The paths are nicely shaded by very established tree canopies. Some of the exhibitions have seen better days, but generally the animals looked healthy and well looked-after. It was sadly quite empty, even by lunchtime, although a modest crowd of about 50 mostly foreigners magically appeared for the "Multi-Animal Show" (every day at 11am, but don't worry about missing this underwhelming performance).
Hannah was kind enough not to demand being carried everywhere. But still, it was a pretty tiring and sweaty day out. Some respite came from lunch in the air-conditioned fast-food restaurant. I was the first customer of the day at about 11.45am. Then the lunch-time rush came in with, ooooh, 3 other families.
And now for the photos. No great wildlife shots I'm afraid (hey, you try lining shots up with a 20 month old toddler pulling at your arm, or worse still try and get her in the shot with the animals!!!). But I just felt I owed it to Hannah to have photographic evidence of this adventure.
As you can see, Hannah had trouble focusing on the animals.
By the way, the animal vocab priming really didn't work. Anything big was declared a "cow!", while anything bird-like was a "duck". Oh, and Hannah got a fright from a "lamb" (which was actually a goat).
1 comment:
Why did no-one else go to the zoo with you?
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