man is a social animal

 north america → united states of america → minnesota → apple valley

exactly 26 nights still before my flight to back manila, i find my forthcoming weekends so busy! there’s nothing bad about planning, but sometimes planning takes the fun out of it..fortuitous events, etc.. anywho, last saturday was minnesota zoo day. even though it’s just in apple valley, more or less 20 miles from saint paul, it took us close to 2 hours getting there. we don’t have private transport here (save for my bike if that counts), and mostly we rely on public bus going around. having mentioned buses, they are extremely punctual here! there’s a timetable in bus stops showing the bus #, frequency, and schedule for the day. actually, the same system works in hong kong, however, a lot of occasion they don’t follow the time schedule. here, not once has a bus arrived late during my errands, but, let me mention some downsides…well, not really downsides but rather my observations. first thing, hop inside a bus and you can spot the most destitute of american culture. i hate to bring this up but majority of bus passengers are the most rejects of the american society. inside one, great are your chances to have a drunk seatmate, or smelly dude, or someone who talks to himself. i hope you don’t sense this as a discriminative remark, but it has just come to my attention that people of the working class has either their own cars, or rent a car. blacks comprise a big part of the public commuters (not that there’s something wrong with that) that there are even bus stops that are becoming their place of loiter. second thing, the smell. the philippines, in the tropics and being extremely humid, demands it citizens to take a bath at least once a day. being in the north of america, people here don’t exercise the same right. the right to smell good despite the abundance of hot water in the shower. you might have got me wrong by now, but  i don’t demean people taking buses, i would still ride buses any time as it’s completely safe, there’s no ploy or risk involved.

going back to the zoo topic (apparently i got carried away with the buses), we arrived around noon. we have $2 discount coupon, so tickets is just for $12 each. the first thing in our list is shark feeding (seems they eat only three times a week?), so we headed to an enclosed facility with big aquarium tanks and watched sharks having meals. they grasp really fast! in the next tank is a bottlenose dolphin, shame that dolphin shows are postponed until further notice so we only get to see it swimming freely. their fish showcase is vestigial compared to hong kong ocean park, or even manila ocean park. lunch afterwards, russian sausage with an extremely sour relish, where again (really stupid)…i almost lost my wired retainer! i know i have it in my pocket, but when i looked for it after walking away, it’s not there! i went back, and hate to imagine i have to scavenge the trash again (which i did once in manila). good thing i found it wrapped in a tissue near the condiments section, ‘must have dropped it. wow! i don’t know how much should i say to myself to be extremely wary next time!!!!

the collection of animals they have is something noah would consider trivial. it’s far from multitude. however, one thing i like is that they are placed in specially designed environment in the likeness of their natural habitats. lions in their dens, moose, caribou, and antelopes in wild lush green fields, camels in arid dessert even with an artificial oasis!, rodents in their burrows, and their main attraction, grizzly russian bear in their coastal russia. one of the most bizarre animal i saw is the takin. an endemic threatened animal from the eastern himalayas, their physical appearance is like a combination of sheep, ox, moose, and bull!

breasts are soft and warm. a section of the park is farmland, where you could see of course, farm animals. chicken, roosters, pigs, cows, goats, and sheeps! i even got a chance to milk a goat! haha..cows, despite the odor, are nice to touch and look at because of their various colors and distinct patch patterns. i also found out that a single pregnant cow produces a lot of milk each day! 24 gallons in less than 5 minutes! (that’s 90 liters) they have rooster (native from southeast asia), and it would have been nice if they have the tarsier too! (i haven’t seen one)

the last thing we did before going home is riding the monorail. this is a 4-dollar slow ride on a monorail giving a bird’s eye view (albeit that of a low bird, hehe) of the whole park, and since we’ve been around earlier, there’s nothing much new that we saw. this is a nice option for elderly to see the whole zoo minus the walking.

i forgot to mention that i saw a japanese macaque! these monkeys, aka snow monkeys, are famously pictured swimming and relaxing idly in hot spring with snowy terrain background…however, there’s no snow, and they were just on trees.

more pics