Zooland

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Finally.

On a particularly cool autumn Saturday with the occasional spattering of rain, Chantelle and I finally decided to conquer Zooland...our first original exploration destination. We caught the 315 from Timeworld which led us straight to O-land.

O-Land is the cumulative name for the combination of Zooland and Flowerland.

We started our adventure off with riding Daejeon's infamous african safari by piling into a yellow lion-shaped bus. Seated amongst a bunch of eager children between the ages of 4-6, I was surprised at how enthusiastic I began to feel as we crowded around the windows to spot close-ups of the elephants, lions, ostriches, antelope, indonesian bengal tigers, and other assorted african safari animals.

The black bears were quite amusing as they would sit up and wave their paws at the children as we passed them by. The children probably thought they were waving hello but Chantelle and I knew the real reason behind the wave: come a little closer so I can EAT you!

I can't explain it, but I got the most excited when the giraffes came into view. They're just so.....beautiful, slender, and elegant-looking. Not to mention tall. And beautiful. Did I say that already?

I found the safety doors the bus had to drive through which separated each habitat remind me Intria doors...waiting for one door to come up, driving through, waiting for it to come down, then waiting for the next one to come up. Oh Intria.

After the safari ride, we clambered out and headed towards the mountain safari. Suffice to say, it was a bit of a disappointment as we just saw your usual farm animals as well as some deer and elk from back home. We were also reminded of home when we saw Canadian geese fluttering about a pond nearby.

However, I think the most beautiful bird I saw was the Mandarin duck. It was quietly tucked away with a bunch of others in a corner of the pond and I wouldn't have seen it were it not for its beautiful sharp-coloured feathers.

What was hilarious was towards the end of our adventure, we were approached by a man and his three kids. He said he was a film school teacher from Jejudo and had brought his kids here for a fieldtrip to make a movie for their class. He requested to take a picture with us foreigners (mainly Chantelle) for his project. Its funny because earlier I jokingly commented that the reason why some kids would stare at Chantelle was because they were wondering who let the foreigner outta her cage. Hence the picture! (yea, you pretty much had to be there to get our joke)

Anyway, after perusing the habitats of cougars, monkeys, and owls, as well as walking through a sculpture park in the middle of the zoo, we decided that the zoo had been fully conquered and proceeded to head back into the city.

(I just want to add that we, in fact, did NOT fully conquer the zoo as while checking out the park map, discovered we had missed a chunk of indoor exhibits...how newb...rookie mistake not giving the park map a final lookover before heading out the exit doors)

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Comments

[Tracy Cao]

Giraffes!
Dont you just love them? I dont think we saw real ones here in Edmonton did we? When Rich and I were in England we saw real ones too and they just amazed me!!!

[uncle yc]

hi jessica, thanks for you excellent tour story, very interesting...and enjoy reading... luv , take care and cheers.

[Teddy]

somethings from Monkey with umbrella
thanks to all photos you posted on the blog, i living in Deajeon could get a chance to discover what is around me. By the look at the MOkey sculptures with tornout umbrella, I will have a need to a new one as a gift for them, since the reason in Summers is quite rainy. being exposed to shower is not that good for them as it will cause them to have a flu.