Taipei Zoo
Generally, I'm not a fan of zoos. I remember visiting the San Francisco zoo in about 2002 and watching the polar bears pacing back and forth, back and forth, all day long in their rather small concrete pens and thinking that this is no way for an animal to live. But there are two purposes for which they are very well-suited, of course--preserving endangered animals and providing opportunities for kids and others to see animals that they would not otherwise have the chance to observe.
The Taipei zoo was on our planned itinerary mostly for the pandas. There are about 1800 wild pandas left and approximately 300 in captivity. Those are pretty small numbers, and the only pandas in the US currently are in Atlanta. So we planned from the beginning to go to see them in Taipei.
On Monday, we took the tram out to the zoo, bought our tickets, walked over to the panda house and discovered that it is closed on the first Monday of every month! Arrgh! That gave us the opportunity to visit the rest of the zoo and we discovered that it is a very, very large zoo with a lot of great exhibits. The pens are larger than in San Francisco, and the lions, camels, and bears were all up and active. We saw three North American cougars active and calling out (that's a first for me!), along with koalas, red pandas, and oryx.
Not only did we need to return for the pandas on another day, but we only saw about half the zoo on the Monday that we visited. So on Thursday we went back and spent a good 90 minutes in the panda house watching them sleep until, eventually, Yuan Bao woke up and started eating. And eating. And eating.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the zoo was the price. The five of us got in for NT$400, or about US$12. Out of curiosity I checked the entrance to the Oakland zoo, which has introduced dynamic pricing so it's hard to know exactly how much it costs. But tickets for the five of us next Thursday in Oakland would cost $109, plus another $15 for parking. That's a lot more than $12, and no pandas to boot! The difference is not just a quirk of the exchange rate--the Taipei zoo's McDonald's sells Big Macs for $NT60, so our entry fee was <7 Big Macs. I haven't checked in Oakland lately, but I would guess that a Big Mac runs around $5, so a trip to the Oakland zoo costs something like 25 Big Macs. Did I mention there are no pandas in Oakland?
Anyway, the visit was one of the highlights of our time in Taiwan. Even though it was rainy on both days, and we had to buy an umbrella on the second visit, I think we'll all remember it for a long time.
Comments
Post a Comment