It was a bright, sunny day. We decided to take a tour of the famous Melbourne Zoo. Lolo recalled his visit to the place as kids with his parents. Of course, much has changed. He revelled in the new imports - a few elephants and a smuggled big spider. Well, I read and re-read the note attached to the spider. It has now found a nice spot for itself in the zoo.

I was happy to see the long queues. The sight of so many people always makes me happy and of course, I was told how 'people happy' I would have been yesterday - being surrounded by the young, the old, plenty of children followed by screams of 'mommy, daddy why, what, where'. Oh dear!

The zoo had all the trappings of an animal farm - snakes, other reptiles, monkeys, geeraffe, tiger, lion, leopards, and other Australian animals such as the kangaroo etc. But I was particularly amused by the butterfly house. You don't expect butterflies in a zoo but I guess in developed countries everything is preserved for posterity. Set in a different temperature, all kinds of butterflies were trapped in this greenhouse. There is a sign at the exit that says 'if a butterfly clings to you, remove it tenderly".

Of course, the elephants were the biggest drawcards in the zoo. They have four elephants including a baby elephant. These are the zoo's import from Thailand. Having used to seeing an elephant on the roads in India every other day, they didn't do much for me!

The other thing that I found amusing and creepy at the same time was this whole display on all kinds of cobwebs and caterpillars! I was surprised that this would find its place in a national zoo. The cobwebs were the ones I have in the past discovered and cleaned from all nooks and corners of the house. Unless they had a special scientific explaination as to how they were spun, I wonder why they stand there. Except for the big smuggled spider which, for its size and black and thick hairy look has an interesting journey!

Can't believe we took all of four hours to complete a tour of the whole zoo. Wrapped up the day with a look at the seals being trained. After dogs, I think seals are most interactive. The penguins reminded me of the nuns I went to school in! I came back home, animated!

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