Ahh, the life of a panda!

We spent one morning at the Beijing Zoo. The place was so crowded that we felt like the whole city decided to join us. It was Golden Week - a week of national holidays, so everyone had the day off. Seeing the large panda exhibit was definitely the main draw.

Upon seeing how these bears live their lives lazily lounging around all day, I'm flabbergasted that there aren't any major religious movements that believe the highest form of reincarnation is that of a giant panda. These guys have THE life. What would make it perfect would be a big screen TV and 24 hours sports broadcasting. What's so great about their perceived life isn't so much that they sleep and eat all day. But it's the way they do it. They look so brazenly lazy...mocking us with the life of leisure. They spread out, get comfortable, kick their feet back, life's good and they can't be bothered. I mean, what could be better than that?

Then of course you have a billion plus people spending their day off at a zoo, clamoring to look at these animals when we in all actuality should be emulating them in the comfort of our own homes! But the crowds pushed and yelled and it was one giant mess of people old and young. Who were the lesser creatures in this example? Yet all the commotion didn't phase these bears. They were chilling out, eating bamboo and looking like they are just the sleepiest, most content animals ever. I'll be honest, I had a lot of envy in my heart that morning.

If anyone knows of how I can be reincarnated as a panda bear, please let me know. Thanks.

Seeing the lions at Tama Zoo

Our first major excursion with our new car was to the Tama Zoo, a rather large zoo on the outskirts of Tokyo with an impressive array of animal exhibits. Certainly the highlight was the lions. There were probably 10 lions inside a large enclosed area, half male which is odd since I didn't know male lions got along. Inside their habitat are roads upon which a plexiglass encased bus drives visitors around to see the lions. Now to make sure that the visitors get their money's worth, parts of the bus are covered in meat so as to ensure that the lion will attack or lick the side of the bus to wow the guests. If you didn't know any better, you'd think the lion was going to reach in and attack you. We took a short video of us offering Ella up to the lion as a sacrifice in return for the bus' safe passage. As you can see from the second picture, Ella does her best imitation of the lion in attacking Shelley's chin.

The other interesting thing we found at the zoo was the number of people there with high powered telephoto lenses - we're talking professional ones that cost thousands of dollars. Shelley jokingly asked if I would rather have the camera and be left only with enough money to take pictures at the zoo? Or go to Africa and take along my current camera. There are evidently people who choose the former. One such guy shot a lot of the orangutans. He pulled out two magazine editions that featured his work - saying that he had visited this zoo over 150 times in the last year. Wow. People really get into their hobbies here. Even if it means they have to come to the zoo to get their fix of wildlife photography.

For those in Tokyo, Tama Zoo is well worth a visit. There's a huge insectarium with butterflies everywhere. Shelley felt like she was in a princess fairly tale land. Orangutans aren't caged up, but are allowed to swing free through a tall network of cables over the zoo. Lots of cool stuff at the Tama Zoo.