September 02, 2012
After an entertaining day at the Ocean Adventure (see previous post), the 2nd half of the field trip was devoted to Zoobic Safari, a 25-hectare amusement park with a variety of animals and activities, complete with tour guides to assist you on your way.
Dana and I were both excited to be here since this will be our first time to see what they have in store for us.
At this point, even though we've been trudging on for half a day, our energy still hasn't waned.
The first thing that happened was each bus/vehicle that comes through the gate gets assigned a tour group and a tour guide. You will then follow instructions mandated by the tour guide to keep everything organized. Our first stop was an introduction to all the animals that you'll see in the park. We were asked to sit on bleachers while the host explained what Zoobic Safari was all about. Then came the animals. Everyone was so excited! My fear was kids may fall off from the bleachers because we were so high up. There were a number of tour groups that day. This slideshow sums up the animals that went on parade.
Our next stop was the Serpentarium behind the bleachers. I don't know if it was just me but it was rather scary.. It was dim and musky (which is what cold-blooded creatures love) but they do have a great collection of animals that you can't see anywhere else, like the skink and the albino python.
After a chilling walk through the Serpentarium (Dana and I aren't fans of reptiles), we were led to the aviary, which was kind of reminiscent of the aviary in Jurassic Park III. We entered a wide cage and you can walk among the birds inside. Some of them were still in cages though, especially the small ones. There was a portion there where the kids can feed the birds, I think it was P10 or P20 per a handful of seeds. I wasn't able to take a decent phot because the birds lapped up those seeds in a second! :) Dana said that although she was a bit scared at first, it was fun because it tickled :)
We kept on walking some more, not sure when we left the aviary though, because if you didn't pay attention, you may just find yourself in a different tour group. Anyway, we saw a bear cat, a camel and a full-grown lion whose roars and growls you can hear from afar. It was chilling because it was so deep and primal. I think he was antsy because he kept walking around near one of the lionesses in the cage.
Then on to the highlights of this field trip - Feeding the tigers from an enclosed vehicle at close range. This was one part of the trip that I was really looking forward too. Dana was excited and scared at the same time. To feed the tigers, you need to purchase chickens from them. Since there was only a limited number of passengers per jeep, parents just paired off and we all pitched in to buy enough chickens. As soon as we boarded the jeep, the kids couldn't stop screaming even though the tigers weren't visible yet!
Once they came out, one pounced on top of the vehicle and ate a chicken that was conveniently placed there. It was hard to take pictures because the roof was frosted (or just dirty). Once the tigers moved to the sides of the jeep, you can practically hear everyone's heart pounding. These guys were huge and can snap your head clean off and they snapped those chickens in a jiffy. But these tigers were used to being fed this way. They weren't like "attacking" the jeep or anything like that. So maybe it was kind of a letdown for me because they seemed tame hehehe
What gave me such a scare was when we stopped at a warehouse type of building where there more tigers in cages. I think they called this "A walk on the wild side". You walk next to these cages and your path is about half a meter wide so you're really, really close to the tigers. You have to watch out because they can spray you with their pee to mark their territory. You can literally touch them if you dare! This white tiger was at the end of the building. It was such an adventure! The other parents didn't want to go inside and they missed out on a lot :)
The tour guide mentioned that there was another lion at the far end of the building because his cage was being renovated. You can hear the growls and roars too.
Next stop was the Croco Loco, which you can probably assume that it's going to be plenty of crocodiles. Well, you guessed right! :) They were huge !! The way they made the pens was that you were actually walking on top of the crocodiles, on steel and iron bars and fences. So, you're looking down on them and from the sides. One parent even made a disbelieving comment, "Totoo ba yan?", roughly translated to "Are they real?" because the crocodiles were just lying there with their mouths open. Until one of them made a move and everything went haywire hahahaha When the big one suddenly moved, all the small ones scampered off and all the parents who were looking at them at close range suddenly scampered back too and started screaming LOL Too bad I didn't have a video of that LOL
The last stop of the tour was where they put together the bones of the animals who died. It's kind of like a Fossil/Bone museum. The fur of the Bengal Tiger was very smooth to the touch and if you imagine it, alive and breathing, it really was a magnificent animal.
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