afropolitaine: i went to the zoo, i saw a fat monkey...

The other day I decided to finally take a trip i've been meaning to take for a looooong time. I went to the zoo and I saw a good number of animals. I have not been to the NATIONAL ZOO since I was very little so why not?! The sun was beaming and it was the middle of the week so not much foot traffic nor tourists and strollers to compete for the uber wide sidewalk with. I was free to swing my arms as haphazardly as I pleased and no one could bother me :)

l'entrance by the zebra crossing

and what do you know...Zebras!!! And cheetahs napping/basking in the sun

maned wolf

down the Asia Trail

Aha!

THIS!!! Was what took my breath away! The panda taking a nap! I was somewhat closely following the story of the birth of the baby panda that happened a couple of months ago and had planned to go ot the zoo and see the new baby, but unfortunately the baby died due to a liver complication/condition :/ Mama Bear was devastated and considering how endangered and few they are in the world seeing this panda almost brought a tear to my eye <3 p="p">

Before seeing this elephant, I smelt the dung in the air and I knew elephants had to be nearby and voila - there goes Babar! I am weirdly very familiar with the smell of elephant dung...must be from seeing them so close in many places and even riding one once - that is very veeeery close to the source of elephant dung ;)

...

Onto the bird park and these ducks were straight chilling...thoughts of Peking duck were not to be verbalized in this zone

Some kind of pad, not lilies though...

One of the [approx.] 40 flightless birds in the world - the Emu. (I was a little disappointed there weren't any ostriches :/ as my grandfather used to farm them and i wanted to feel some nostalgia -i guess i still did)