1215: Zoology

Andie and I took a trip out to Toronto Zoo today. Getting there from Mark and Lynette’s house was quite a trek on public transit, but it’s eminently possible. (For those curious, you ride the subway all the way to the east end of the green line — Kennedy station — then catch an 86A bus to the zoo. Said bus stops approximately every 100 yards on the way, lengthening the journey by a considerable degree, but you do get there eventually.)

I’ve been to the zoo here before, but Andie hasn’t. (Obvious, really, since she hasn’t been to Toronto before.) Like much of my wanderings around the city in general over the last couple of weeks, I was surprised by quite how much I remembered. A few things have changed since I last came — some exhibits have opened and closed, and we were just a day too early to get a chance to see the zoo’s newly-acquired giant pandas — but for the most part it was pretty much as I remembered.

I’m generally not particularly big on “cultural” trips. Museums often bore me if there’s not much in the way of interactivity, and my appreciation of the visual arts (or lack thereof) limits my enjoyment of an art gallery. I’m not even a huge fan of live music in many cases, despite being a musician myself, because I’m more interested in the music itself rather than the performance more often than not. (The exception to this rule is live performances of jazz/soul etc, which often have a lot more “personality” than live performances of art music. But I digress.)

Where was I? Oh yes. I’m not generally that big on “cultural” trips, but I must confess to having something of a soft spot for a good zoo. I think it’s the simple fact that animals are interesting and unpredictable to watch, and it can be fascinating to discover a creature you were previously unfamiliar with. Particular highlights today, for example, included a “tree kangaroo”, which looked rather cat-like; the discovery that bats can and will climb around like monkeys as well as hanging there being boring and/or flapping around wildly; that tigers actually do say “rawr”; and that somewhere in deepest darkest Africa there’s a ridiculous-looking bird with an enormous beak that would apparently rather jump between tree branches than actually fly.

Toronto Zoo is a good zoo if you enjoy looking at animals (derp) because there’s a lot of them in a variety of different environments. It’s quite a trek to get around the whole thing, but it’s a worthwhile experience, as you’ll have the chance to see all manner of different things. Although today, being a weekday, was relatively quiet, it was clear what the “highlights” for the general public were — the polar bears were winning by a long shot, though I suspect once the new panda exhibit is open to the public it will prove similarly popular, if not more so.

We also took a ride on the “zoomobile” electric car tour thing. This initially appeared a bit steep at $8 each, but after riding it all the way around and being taken into some “zoomobile exclusive” safari park-style areas with free-roaming animals, it proved a worthwhile experience, so be sure to check it out if you’re in the area.

Oh, and also we saw a horny male zebra with a gigantic dong trying to boff a female who wasn’t having any of it. Poor chap.