A Day at the Zoo!

Grandpa and Grandma have been in Indonesia for three days now and they are having a great time here. Wednesday they came to school to check things out and Thursday we spent the day in Karawaci doing things like swimming, biking, and enjoying a Chinese New Year lunch. Today, however we broadened our horizons and headed to the mountains in South Jakarta, to Taman Safari. Taman Safari is kind of like a zoo, but it also has a water park, a small theme park,a camp ground, and some different shows. Although we couldn't do it all, we did enjoy the "Zoo" aspect of the park quite a bit.

When we first arrived at the park we did a caravan drive which is basically like driving through all of the animal's pens. At the beginning we had all kinds of deer, zebra's and antelopes coming up to our windows and looking for carrots, or wortel as they say here. Luckily we had bought come wortel on our drive up. This drive took us through the homes of elephants, giraffes, tigers, lions, bears, hippos, rhinos, and the list goes on. When we went through the lion and tiger pens we could see them walking right by the car, so we made sure that our windows weren't too low. There were signs depicting people's arms being bitten by the tigers, which were quite funny to see.

After our caravan drive we parked the car and walked through different parts of the park. We first stopped by the baby zoo where we got to take pictures with a leopard and a baby orangutan. It only cost a dollar per time, so I figured it was worth it. After this we had lunch and then we went to see the komodo dragon, which was quite large, but lazy and not in the mood for a photo shoot. The Cowboy Show started soon after that, so we headed out to that and listened to an Indonesian version of a Wild West show. It was all in Indonesian, but it was fun to watch anyway. They had western-type stunts and all kinds of typical farm animals to make the experience more real. We even got sprayed by some water during part of the show because we were sitting close to the front. We did not expect it at all. After the show Grandma and I had a quick ride on an elephant and then we visited the reptiles and monkeys before our 3 hour drive back to Karawaci.

Overall, we all considered the day to be quite a success. We have included some of our favorite shots from the day. I love the one with Grandpa's Taman Safari shirt. He was cold during the day, so he bought a shirt to put under the shirt he was wearing...but we think it was an XL for an asian woman, and not a North American man. Haha. Don't worry, he is not trying to pull off a new look, he will pass the shirt on to one of the grand kids. :)