Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Seoul Zoo!

Last week we left Songtan early in the morning, headed to Seoul and spent Steve's day off at the Seoul Zoo in Seoul Grand Park.



  I think it was one of my favorite outings we've done in Korea yet, for sure up in the top 10!






The Seoul Zoo was a lot nicer than I was expecting.  It was huge and full of all kinds of animals, with lots of room to run, climb, swim and hop.  The zoo itself was nestled in the mountains, so we were completely surrounded by beautiful landscape and felt separated from the city itself.




I'm really undecided as to if I enjoyed the mountains and surrounding scenery or the actual zoo more....



 The other great thing about this zoo was how active all the animals were!  I'm not sure what is wrong with the animals in all the zoos I've been to in the States but these animals actually were doing things and interacting, not just laying around!  The hippo's swam over to us, the bears were fighting over food, the ostriches and flamingos were running around, the tigers were fighting and prowling around, the giraffes were eating and playing and so forth. I've never seen so much activity at the zoo before.

Not zoomed, this is how close we were!



Caleb was a little nervous about the dolphins at first....


baby elephants!



"Hi Caleb Giraffe!"









Caleb's "victory" signs 
These monkeys were not in cages, just out hanging around!

The other fun and unexpected thing about this zoo was that they had feeding times scheduled throughout the day and you could go watch the different animals get fed (or feed them yourself in some cases).  We were able to see the tigers and lions get thrown whole (dead) chickens and chunks of red meat, the bears were given their daily fruit, the dolphins fed fish and we got to feed the giraffes!




 "Come here giraffes, giraffes, giraffes" C uses the plural 




Steve got licked.


It was pretty cool getting to see, touch and feed them up close! Caleb hasn't stopped talking about it or pretending to be "Caleb the Giraffe" which comes in quite handy when trying to get him to eat his green leafy veggies!


Trying to join a hogwon
Making friends


Caleb the Tiger




the "zoo tram"


Pretty much sums up the day!

6 comments:

  1. Wowwweeee! How fun was that? And Beautiful! Thanks for sharing! Love you guys!!!

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  2. That smile couldn't get any bigger! If I get to come, lets go to the zoo! It looks amazing!

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  3. A few years ago they did a huge remodel of the zoo here because they were publicly criticized for their inhumane animal enclosures. The animals were so sad and bored and malnourished. But now they are fun and free! Glad you guys are getting to see Seoul!

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  4. This looks really, really fun! I would love every moment of this as well because it is God's awesome creation. I think you're right, the animals there do appear to be so much more active there as every time I went to the zoo, they were hardly ever out playing or wasn't much activity. But I can see why they are there - they appear to have much more freedom! Sooo FUN!! And I love that huge smile lil' Caleb has!! Love you!! love, hugs & prayers, your aunt in SD

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  5. Oh my goodness, I love that last picture!! Looks like a lot of fun!!!

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