Friday, May 6, 2011

Seoul Grand Park Zoo. Also A Very Slight Amount of Buffy

Hello, readers.

Today, I ventured out to a zoo with my school, and students. I rode a ski lift with two of them (students, not schools. Physics, you know).  We flew over a pond, some sheep, and a very small mountain. It was a very slow trip. We were unafraid. Except for that one time, when one of the students said, "I'm taking the S.A.T. tomorrow." And I said, "Are you nervous?" And she said, "A little bit."

Note: She meant the U.S. S.A.T., not the Korean one. She has plans on going to the Ivy League. Or, at least, NYU.

Here is a picture of that which we were not afraid.


Inside the zoo, there were lions, and tigers, and bears, and not a single oh my. Some gibbons, though. And a polar bear. And a hyena that looked at me for a long time in the nocturnal room. We were by ourselves. It was dark. Pretty sure no one got possessed. But we'll talk about Buffy, some other time. I've only just got around to finishing Season 8. Must process the death and stuff, first.

Here are some pictures of animals that may or may not have been sad about where they were.


These are animals called, "Jungang High School Girls." There are, approximately, at last count, about 700 or so of these things. Usually, they wear muted, black uniforms. Today they wore a lot of flannel. And denim. It was like if grunge happened in the 80s and in Korea. One student wore a leather jacket, a short, black-and-white striped dress, and sunglasses. She was perhaps aware that, among other animals at a zoo, there are usually boys.


Flamingos. Pink ones, I believe.


A sort of fox. Saw one in Tokyo. That one was awake and running and later I discovered a fox shrine that possibly incorporated her or him into being. This fox was cute and sleepy.


Yes, that child is holding up a sign to that monkey. Yes, that monkey is reading it. If you would like to have a New Yorker style caption contest, then, by all means, get to it.


Not entirely sure why they decided to build a giant, sacrificial, stone altar in the middle of the zoo, but there you go.


Barbary sheep worshipping at the "Ball of Food We Can Eat."


The rare, and difficult to properly pronounce in Korean, "Pororo." I do not know why he is angry.


That is one leopard asleep on another. Lovely, and a little bit tragic. Life, you know.


Bear.



Happy Friday, readers. Happy Birthday, sister.  Your gift is in my imagination. Perhaps it will be in the mail, soon.




ttfn.

5 comments:

  1. That fox is a fennec! It usually lives in the desert, and are occasionally kept by the Bedouin to nom the scorpions in their tents. For a while, if you searched "Korea" on Flickr, some 80% of the results were pictures of fennecs, so I think they are some kind of big deal. You are blessed to gaze upon the Comically Large-Eared Ones.

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  2. "listen, this is a message from money-2-days-from-now. if you see a big blue box, run away. the spaceman doesn't really have a banana farm in there..."

    thanks for the birthday wishes. am happy with imaginary things, don't bother with such unreliable realities as mail... :)

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  3. Huh, Jihyun's video and post about the same zoo is pretty solildly in the "sad about where they were camp." She came back pretty much horrified about the place, but then, she went pretty much knowing what she would see. (Though I think it can't be as bad as the Jeonju Zoo, which was so bad I had to write a song about it... and yes, an elephant without a trunk was a real thing, not a made-up thing, and very depressing at that.)

    Oh, there are the 'tans (and tans) and gorilla she was talking about...

    Anyway, I came looking not for this, but for the name of that podcast you mentioned... about the Lovecraft movie things... Media something?

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  4. @gord It's NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/05/03/135835629/pop-culture-happy-hour-a-long-days-journey-to-mork-and-mindys-house

    The bit about Lovecraft is during their discussion of adaptations.

    The song is enjoyably depressing.

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  5. Aww the fox is so cute and its big ears he he.. I like your pictures, makes me want to go back there :)

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