Friday, May 11, 2007

Wild about Wildlife


Orana Wildlife Park
Originally uploaded by pointybunny.
Took baby girl to her first wildlife experience. Went to the little but nice Orana Wildlife Park

We started the day at her Music playgroup. Its also small and so far we like it. They have alot of activities that baby girl actually participates in, in her other playgroup she mostly just runs around in circles and causes trouble.

In a nice gesture they gave us all Mother's Day cards and Hot chocolate. Probably the only card I will get. Taka isn't big on cards or writing of any kind. The first time he ever gave me a card was this past Valentine's Day. Towards the end of the hour, Taka came for awhile and baby girl was so excited to have daddy there. She showed him all the toys and shared her cheerios with him. While we were talking she went and pulled all the playgroups books off the shelves.
Music Playgroup
Baby girl has a friend in her playgroups, a little Japanese girl who is about her same age and height. Her mother is very sweet however, much more quiet than me. oh well, most people are more quiet than me ha ha. I love watching them spend time together because since neither of them can talk properly they point alot and touch each other gently and Baby girl even let her eat some of her Cheerios. That might not sound like much but food is very important to her. One boy took her Cheerios and she was so upset she was shaking from head to toe. Well more about playgroups in another post.

After playgroup we headed off to the wildlife park. I am not a zoo fan because they make me sad but I guess these new style zoos with the simulated natural environment with room to run is as good as you can get being a captive.

Driving there was funny, when we go somewhere new, Taka always asks me "Where is the ...(insert place)?" and I always answer "How do I know, I have never been here before either" we have this same exchange every place we go.

Once there, as we got out of the car we immediately saw rhinocerus or rhinocerusus whatever the plural is there, but we had to wait for our friends. they were running late so we went inside to wait. Tickets were reasonable since children under 5 are free. Immediately inside baby girl spotted a group of ducks and ran at them trying to befriend them. She was afraid of birds for awhile after a chicken bit her but she seems to have gotten over that. When our friends arrived we jumped on the tram which was basically a tractor with two cars painted with zebra stripes attached. We were the only ones on the tram but mr driver didnt seem to thrilled with us. At every stop he seemed to give this kind of double talk that would lead you to believe this was where we were supposed to get off. Finally at one stop, our friend Aki got off to ask the man about the Cheetah exhibit and driver yelled "hurry up, I cant wait here all day" we were like, "buddy, chill, we are the only ones on the tram" I finally got aggravated enough to get off at the Giraffe stop and walk the rest of the park. One good thing about that "tram" is it doesnt go flying around like a speeding bullet like the one at Disney's Animal Kingdom where you sort of go "Hey, I think I saw an elephant back there, not sure" when I was working there a tram ran over some rare birds!
on the tram

At the Giraffe enclosure we were there in time for the Giraffe feeding. Park employees gave us branches with leaves on them and baby girl got to feed a giraffe! and I got to pet a Giraffe. Another thing on my list of things I never thought I would happen. I got hit by ham today too which was also on my list of things I never thought would happen but that is another story.
Giraffe Times Two

We walked up to the Lion enclosure and we were all struck by how big and powerful they are. I dont think unless you seem them in reality you can imagine the sheer power that radiates from them. Baby girl was yelling "Kitty Kitty" at them all which was very cute. I was worried that the scraggly fence around them might not hold if they got annoyed by her. Same thing with the tigers, but the tigers were most depressing for me. We only saw one but he was doing that bored pacing back and forth they do in captivity. They should be running through the jungle and swimming across rivers, not pacing back and forth in some ratty little pen while dopes like us stare at them.

They had a farm section with all the usual farm animals there. Baby girl saw a bunny and almost went out of her mind. They had an enclosure with 2 cows and 2 sheep just hanging out and you could climb in with them. I found it odd there were no park employees around to watch out that you didnt kill yourselves or the animals. Baby girl immediately ran to the sheep and hugged them. She touched the cows lovingly though when they moved she got nervous because of their size. I kept a close eye on her so she didnt start poking them. She saw a real Piggy too but didnt believe me it was the same as her stuffed Piggy.
Sheep like Meggy

Baby girl's love for animals is amazing. I don't know where it comes from as we don't have any animals and she has never been around them for any length of time. You can see her love for animals comes from her heart. Her eyes shine when she sees them. Somehow she makes the connection between her stuffed toys and real animals too.
Taking her to animal places is my favorite, it's always so fun to see her really happy like this.

We went in the Kiwi house which oddly enough, had a sign written in japanese but I didnt see anything else written in Japanese. Didn't see any Kiwi's though. I am beginning to think they are mythological. every time we go somewhere there are supposed to be Kiwi's there arent any.
Kiwi House

If you have any curiousity about why New Zealanders call themselves "Kiwi's" you can read about it :
Here
I wondered that myself as it doesn't seem all that flattering but it says they can outrun humans and slash with their feet. All useful skills.

Well, seems like most people really love monkeys because we sure saw alot of them and everyone in our party was thrilled. I am a grouch, I don't dig monkeys that much. However, we did see Otters and I am in love with Otters now. I didn't know they were the cutest things on earth. I could watch them all day. Everyone else was enthralled with watching the porcupine get fed but I couldn't get away from the otters. They are natures comedians, they were so funny and adorable.
Otters could possibly be the cutest things on earth

Back at the front of the park, baby girl was having fun with the ducks again. For some odd reason she was growling and squealing at them which made her look like she was having a fit of some kind. In the gift shop I wanted to pick her up a souvenir but all the stuffed animals were very pricey and the baby shirts were too, I was in there for so long everyone was annoyed by me so I grabbed a little plastic cup with the logo on it for baby girl. The salesclerk said "is this it?" in a aggravated tone. Well, at least I bought something for Pete's sake. sheesh. The sun was setting and the park was closing soon so it was time to take Baby girl home.
Time to go Home

New Zealandism of the day:

"Bach"

This is some kind of vacation home and pronounced like "Batch" have heard it many times and with the accent always thought they were calling me a bad name (b#tch)