Zoo's: A Comparison

When I lived in Urumqi, China, my friends (the circle) and I decided it would be great fun to go to the zoo. And it was. Then several years later while visiting my brother in Phoenix we went to the Wildlife zoo. It was also great fun.

Why am I chatting about this? Well, while at the Wildlife park my mind started thinking back to the Urumqi zoo and the comparison of the two parks. I hope you enjoy!

Feeding the animals:

Urumqi: I was able to get close to the ostrich and feed him/her some pellets. We were able to get the Ostrich's level and really connect.

Phoenix: The zoo provided pellets to feed the Giraffes. We were able to get the to Giraffe's level here. You could have even felt the Giraffe's tongue.

Petting Area's:

Urumqi: This zoo provided a unique opportunity to feel like you were amongst the animals in their natural habitat. We were able to again feed the animals and have them come right up to us. I felt like a movie star...or like I should have been in the Hitchcock movie "The Birds".

Phoenix: The wildlife park also had a petting area. They had goats, chickens, and variety of other animals. We were able to feed the animals to encourage them to come up close. As you can see not everyone enjoyed the closeness of the animals. What I really liked was the hand washing station right outside the petting area...

Featured Attraction:

Urumqi: The BIG reason for us going to the zoo was being able to hold a baby bear. As you can see from the way I am holding the bear I thought he was going to bite my face off. We were charged 10 Yuan to hold the bear and get our picture taken (just over a $1.00). We then got to play with TWO bear cubs they had. Super cute! The only sad thing is they pulled the teeth out so they wouldn't bite the customers.

Phoenix: At the Phoenix zoo I was also able to hold a wild animal...a MONKEY! That's right a cute cuddly monkey. There was no charge to hold the monkey and he was extremely playful. The scary part was that this monkey had teeth and little fingers and knows how to use them. But I came away from the experience unscathed. I was also able to play with the monkey for awhile and capture some pictures of the monkey enjoying the zoo. (see several examples below).


I love the above picture. What crazy MONKEY likes to play in a LION's mouth?
Every Monkey has a family. I think this Monkey's family is pretty darn CUTE!


On a side note: While I was looking through my pictures from China I came across one of my absolute favorites. My friends aka THE CIRCLE and I sitting on the Great Wall of China. This was the morning after we slept on the Great Wall. (Sleeping on the Great Wall is illegal...so don't tell anyone we did this.) These amazing women, and several others (FAB FOUR), accepted me, loved me, made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. But most importantly they let me be me. They let me be the person I wanted to become.

I like the symbolism in the picture with the Great Wall. It can either be the journey I am about to take, or the journey I have just undertaken. It changes for me every time I look at the picture. Either way, China, was an extremely important stop on my journey through life.