Dave W pretends he's unenthused, even though he genuinely didn't sleep a wink last night (wow, you can't tell!) because he was so excited about going to the zoo.
He is twenty-five years old
He is twenty-five years old
While Egypt's cities were essentially large-scale safari parks - where you'd see camels, donkeys, goats, chickens, dogs and so many cats taking their chances on the mental roads - local wildlife has been lacking since I got to Taiwan. I haven't seen one pigeon, and even the stray cats walk politely alongside humans as if they're being taken for a walk.
This place is mental in more subtle ways.
Twenty-five
Luckily, Taipei Zoo is on hand for all my zoophile needs (in the bibliophile sense rather than the other one - though there's definitely a stigma attached to a fully-grown man going to the zoo by himself, so I didn't). It was bizarrely cheap too. If there's one thing I like more than seeing animals shuffle around uncomfortably in incorrect and restricted environments, it's enjoying a great, childish day out for the equivalent of 65p. 65p!!!
Disclaimer: This is just going to be dodgy photos of some animals I liked, with desperate attempts at amusing captions to justify them. But it's my bloody website, alright? The tortoises were best. They were great.
Taipei Zoo
(臺北市立動物園)
(臺北市立動物園)
Asian animals
Formosan rock macaque, Taiwan's local primate.
You can tell, as the swelling of the estrus female's red arses is the same as the local humans
Crab-eating macaques play innocently with a child's shoe.
Yeah right, like we won't suspect they've eaten him. 'Crab-eating' my (shoeless) foot!
This Siamang has better hair than me
Fat gibbon
Tiger yawns sarcastically, as some sort of comment on this blog entry. Maybe if I made that fur into a hat and your bones into soup, that'd be exciting enough for you? Stripy prick.
Asian elephant love (or hate?)
African animals
African elephants are more British in their reserved displays of affection.
A holdover from colonial times? (They really don't forget)
This is how camels are supposed to look when they're healthy.
Unnerving after seeing some of the sorry specimens in Egypt
Hippos swim in their own filth and bloody love it
Some sort of... stripy horse? What the hell?
Tapir family values
Black bear chomps sugarcane
Indri lemur. 40 million years ago, we looked a lot like this.
You're laughing and learning today (mainly the latter)
Nocturnal animals
Bit-scary owl
Sloths provide effective competition to the pandas in the bone-idle stakes
Reptiles
This 'common' snapping turtle is the closest I've come to an encounter with a dinosaur
Oh, until this
Yellow-headed tortoises in inappropriate rave lighting
Burmese star tortoises chomp salad
I can't remember what this freakish guy was called, but I really liked him
This might be an... iguana? Do I look like a zoologist?
(Yeah, a bit)
African spurred tortoise... love? Do I look like an expert on reptile mating behaviour?
(That's exactly what you look like)
Birds
Penguins being boring. At least the ones in Edinburgh Zoo (are forced to) march around a bit for my entertainment
Flamingos. Actually, all birds are pretty boring
Hyacinth macaw
White cockatoo chomps sweetcorn
Blue and gold macaw chomps something or other
Dead cave bear
Dead turtle
?
