Taiwan2014之梅雨的季节-Taipei Zoo

Today's plan was to go visit 1 of the famous star of Taipei Zoo- Yuan Zai (圆仔） who is the offspring of the 2 pandas that China gift Taiwan. She had just came out to meet the public not long and hence it's a good time for us to visit Taipei Zoo.

I have heard from others before that Taipei Zoo is a worth a visit when in Taipei but again never got around planning it into our itinerary previously. Of course, I was a bit skeptical about visiting other zoos since we have a world class one back home. Hehe I am very proud of Singapore Zoological Gardens but we didn't have pandas until recently.

Before setting off this morning, we met with a minor earthquake. This is the first time we met an earthquake when in Taiwan. Was very scared by the earthquake so much that whenever we took the lift, I say a little prayer hoping that we will not get struck in the lift if an earthquake is to strike again.

Took MRT to the zoo and it's nearly an hour later then we reached our destination. But the weather was not to our favour. Met with a heavy downpour and I couldn't even take a photo of entrance of the zoo. First stop is of course the panda enclosure which only allows a maximum number of guests each time with 10mins of visiting time.

Today, however since there are not much visitors we are able to stay as long as we want in the enclosure. Partly to hide from the rain, partly to see the pandas.

Papa panda- Tuan Tuan (团团）

Tuan Tuan walking towards us

Tuan Tuan emo 1 corner

First enclosure we came to is Panda papa. Since he is not the star there are not many people who crowd around his enclosure. Haha Poor thing. We spend some time here observing him before moving on to the next closure which is her daughter - Yuan Zai.

Mr Love trying to fit into a photo with Tuan Tuan

Yuan Zai's enclosure in contrast is more crowded. A lot of people crowded at here and keep calling out her name in hope to make her come down from her sleeping position on top of the tree trunk but to no avail.

Yuan Zai sleeping peacefully

Selfie with Yuan Zai

Yuan Zai is really adorable and lazy. No matter how much the visitors called out to her, she didn't even budge from the position.

At 1 point however, she moved and got everyone excited thinking that she is awake. Turns out that she is only shifting her sleeping position and turn to the other side and continue her beauty sleep. We realised that no matter how hard we try, Yuan Zai is not going to cooperate and come down to interact with us. So we moved on to her mummy's enclosure.

Sleeping on the other side

Yuan Zai's mummy-Yuan Yuan(圆圆）

Yuan Zai's mummy Yuan Yuan is sharing an enclosure with Yuan Zai and they have a pretty big playground inside for them to play with.

Yuan Yuan originally was sitting at a corner taking her snack but decided to go find Yuan Zai after a while. We thought she will go wake Yuan Zai up but turns out she only went and sat below the trunk that Yuan Zai is sleeping on.

Yuan Yuan going to find Yuan Zai

Sitting below Yuan Zai

Zoo keepers who is taking care of Yuan Zai since birth

Playground for Yuan Yuan & Yuan Zai

We moved the gift shop to try find something to buy for piggy bro who love Yuan Zai. Unfortunately we couldn't find anything here to buy since the panda merchandises sold here are not those of Yuan Zai or her parents.

Besides panda merchandises, there are others exhibits here in the gift shops. We didn't buy anything here but had a great time taking photos. Muhaha

Skinny Polar bear

Hubby didn't want buy the soft toy for me, so I took a photo with it

Lego Panda

It was still raining when we exit the panda enclosure. Didn't know where to go and we spotted a tram. A single ride costs NT5 and we can use easy card to pay for it. Didn't know where the tram will take us to but it beats walking around in the rain.

So happy to be on the tram

I am also happy haha

Front car of the tram

We were dropped at the Amphibian and Reptile House. Along the way we saw across quite a few enclosures along the way but the tram didn't make any stop besides here, therefore we got down and check out what is in store for us.

Like a stone sculpture

It suddenly starts moving

Slowly, slowly

Came close to us

There are quite a few tortoises and turtles on display outside while walking towards the reptile enclosure. We stood around to observe the movements of the tortoises but got bored as their movements are too slow. Hurhur.

Pink turtle

There are only a handful of visitors here and we nearly had the whole exhibition house to ourselves if not for the students on excursions.

Playing hide and seek with froggie

In this exhibition house, there are many reptiles on display. Snakes, four legged dragon, fishes, frogs, turtles and tortoises.

Frankly speaking, I don't know most of them. All look alike to me. Haha But the exhibition hall here is pretty big and there are a lot of species on display here. It actually quite educational to bring kiddos here and familiarize them with the various animals in the zoo.

We took the tram back to entrance and got down here. Decided to find somewhere to have lunch. But to our disappointment, there is nothing here but only Mcdees. There is a panda cafe here however at the panda enclosure but we weren't prepare to spend much for lunch and therefore settled for Mcdees.

It was a long queue since rain was pretty heavy and many took sheltered here. There are also loads of students who came for excursion. I chatted with some kids while Mr Love queue up for our meals.

After lunch we decided to visit 1 more enclosure before calling it a day. There are many animals here that we have back home and therefore we skipped them all and went straight to the animal that we did not have in Singapore- Koala Bear.

Spot the Koala

Facts about the bears

Turns out the Koalas are as sleepy as the Polars and all we saw are sleeping Koalas on the tree branches. Haha

Left the zoo after this enclosure and decide to make our way to Yilan hoping to be able to eat the Onion pancake that we craved so much for. I believe it is also this decision that save us from a prospective danger.