Okay, these were cool.
For some strange reason, I decided to get a zoo membership while I was in Los Angeles…
[Edited to add: It is working out pretty well though! I’ve used it… The zoo is enjoyable!]
I went more than once on this holiday trip to LA. One time I went was to pet a hippo with my friend James!
Oh, that’s right. You can pet a hippo at the zoo.
[Note to anyone doing this: Try to leave yourself even extra time when you get there – unless you already have your tickets to the zoo itself – because the line just to get tickets to the zoo (not the hippo thing, specifically) was long]
Here’s one of the secrets I feel we learned (though we learned it a little too late)… So, here’s the deal with what happens. They let you in and you get to pet the hippo. It’s pretty cool… though you are doing it through their cage (though there are huge spaces between the bars). But it’s a little like, “Aw, poor hippo. Am I bad for petting it?” But the hippo actually seemed to love it. She got so excited when she saw people around (or at least she seemed excited).
Aaaaanyway, you pet the hippo. And then, you go back in one more time for a picture.
Because the hippo can be dangerous-ish, you can’t pet the hippo while the picture is being taken. So, here’s the secret. Go in separately from your party (as different groups go in together)… and take pictures of each other during the petting part. I think that’s the real way to go about it (even if we didn’t – gah).
We also got to see reindeer, and make our own reindeer antlers.
That’s pretty much all the special/different zoo stuff we did. The rest of it is kinda the normal animal business.
Now, to the night-time zoo visit…
These lights were pretty darn spectacular!
I heard that the zoo used to set up something along the road that you’d drive along, but in this incarnation, you got to walk through the zoo. Everything was themed really well, and super beautiful. Many things were basically light shows set to music.
It’s hard to just describe a bunch of lights. So, all I can say is it was pretty fab.