For this week’s language exchange, ‘Shine Far‘ suggested we go to the zoo. He doesn’t have an English name yet, nor have I decided how to do people’s names on the blog yet, so for now, he’s ‘Shine Far.’ We saw a watermelon-eating giant panda who appeared bored to tears, some red pandas climbing a tree, baby tigers taking baths and fighting pieces of meat, a python kill and eat a fuzzy black bunny (should’ve run for it, stupid bunny!), two cobras strike and hiss at each other, and lots of other stuff. The animals were cool, but the cages were depressing. We had fun practicing on Shine Far, and he on us.
Photos are here!
Afterward I stopped at the old guys corner to chat and unload some oral homework. There was a new old guy there, and after looking in my notebook and seeing my hàn zì, he ordered me to go buy calligraphy stuff and start practicing and said a whole bunch of stuff in really fast Tianjin-huà, which I think basically meant my writing is in need of some serious help.
Canada:
China:
Taiwan:
The States:
Brazil:
UK:
Those baby tigers were seriously cute. Notice that one is a white tiger, and the other is normal tiger color….they are twins, and this is actually pretty rare.
Here’s a link to an article with more about the tiger twins (born at the end of May) and more cute tiger pictures!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=472733&in_page_id=1811
Hey… is there any way that you could bring me home either a baby tiger or a red panda as an “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long” gift?? *grins* I’m not picky… I’ll take either one.
Have to say, though… the picture with you guys AND the tigers really shows the scale of it… SOOO tiny!!! which, of course, makes the tiger all that much cuter.
Love you guys!
Hmmm. That’s two requests I’ve had now to import endangered species. Kelly wants the baby tigers for a birthday present, and you want a tiger or a red panda for a “Jessica’s been away too long” present. Yikes. :D Are you guys trying to get me kicked out of the country for animal-napping?!?!?!
The tiger babies were about the size of 1.5-2 housecats…and SO cute. The mother kept letting them grab some of the food and then she would go steal it away from them and hide it. I think she was trying to teach them how to hunt.
And watching the python swallow the whole rabbit…wow. That was something. The best part was when it only had one more swallow to go, and there were little tufts of fur sticking out of the snakes mouth. Our friend turned to us, and said (in English, and sounding so excited)….”I saw this on Discovery Channel!”