How do you zoo?

Took a trip to the National Zoo and was reminded how nice it is. Even after visiting the San Diego Zoo earlier this summer, I still prefer the good ol' free one in DC. The highlight? The pandas. The creepiest? All the critters in the reptile house.

I have but one complaint about the DC zoo though. Get some giraffes! What is a zoo without graceful, slightly awkward, long-necked giraffes?

Trip to the Zoo

I went on a field trip to the zoo this week with the kiddies. Great fun. Ohhh, birds. Ohhh llamas. Ohhh anteaters.


Animals are one of the easier things to teach in English. Kids love animals, and there are lots of animal songs. In addition, some of the names are similar to the Spanish ones (tigre, tiger; leon, lion, mono, monkey).


And you can always act out the animals. (Example, monkey: hop around, curl your arms under, and yell ee, ee, oo, eeee, ooo, eee) They seems to like that.


For some reason the kids were excited to the see the spiders (and they knew the English word for spider quite well, which I am going to chalk up to Spiderman). Ewww. What is wrong with these chidren?

ZOOlicious

When my parents cam to visit me two weeks ago, I took them to the National Zoo. Yay. I love the zoo. The day was a little rainy, but I'm still really happy they came down to see me. We saw the elephants, sea-lions, tigers, black bears, gorillas, and gross reptilian things.

The gorillas were the most amusing. Two were in the middle of a fight when stopped by their cage. They actually did the whole, beat on my chest, I am alpha male thing. It was crazy to see. Everyone was chattering and clapping when they did that. But it was a little too much violence for my tastes. Walking away from that display really made me think about agression and natural tendencies. Is it really ok to push your brother off of a branch? And then for human children to clap about it? This was some sort surreal experience for me, and it made me feel uncomfortable.

After the zoo, I took my parents to Dupont Circle where we had dinner at little Italian place. Yay for visitors!

A Trip to DC

Yesterday Emily C. and I went to Washington DC. We drove to Shady Grove and then took the metro into the city. EMILY gave ME wrong directions. Yes, that's right, now there is balance in the universe and people can no longer accuse ME of being a bad direction giver.

We first visited the National Museum of the American Indian. I was more impressed with it that I expected to be. The elaborate bead work of Native Americans is amazing. Also, the influence of Christianity on Native American culture was clearly delineated in certain displays.

Next we visited the National Zoo. Unfortunately, we got to the zoo so late that we missed a lot of the animals. Emily flirted with the zoo police in the panda exhibit so the officer let us stay to watch the pandas chomping on bamboo for an extra half hour. Way to go.

Lastly, we saw a show at the National Theater: Nen Daiko: The Power and Beauty of Taiko Drumming. I was highly impressed. The settings were intimate. We were very close to the performers; so close we could see the sweat dripping off their brow. The performance was spectacular. I don't know how their arms don't fall off.

The fabulous drummers from the Ekoji Buddhist Temple present kumi daiko – ensemble drumming – played on large Japanese drums with choreographed movement. Their performance embodies the bold energy and athleticism characteristic of this mesmerizing musical form.

Overall, we had a nice day.