Rendezvous with Wildlife.
Boston 2007: New England Aquarium
The New England aquarium is a treat for all animal lovers!
We were surrounded by beautiful creatures in water. My favorite spot in the aquarium was the Penguin habitat. There were these cute penguins- a few swimming in water, a few stretching on the rocks and some lazying around. It was an incredible feeling to be so close to them.
One incident which caught my attention was that of an instrument that was placed on the rails, for the spectators to use. It was shaped like a telescope and the end of its mouth was shaped like a fish. When it is switched on, it would act like a torch and will light up in the form of a fish under water (where the penguins were swimming. Don’t know how many of u can visualize such a thing! This torch was basically used to fool the poor creatures. Whenever someone lighted the torch, all the penguins would swim fast to the light, assuming it to be a fish. The torch could be moved up and down, left and right, and this would in turn move the “fish” under water and the penguins will keep chasing it (until someone switches off the torch). I tried my hand at fooling the penguins too, but later felt sympathetic towards them when I saw the others doing it.
Wonder if there will be a time when penguins would be able to read and write. Then, I am sure they would be able to leave an appropriate comment for this blog ;-)
Thailand 2009: Safari World
The Safari World (or Safari Park as some may call it) was one of the most refreshing part of visiting Thailand. There were numerous animals like Lions, Tigers, Zebras, Giraffes and many of them which we could not even recognize. There were many fun shows around the park like sea lion show, dolphin show, monkey show, all of which were organized pretty well. The best part about the whole safari was the offer of taking a picture with a tiger cub, which was half our size, for just 350 bahts (currency of Thailand. For those who are curious: 1 Thai baht = 1.37605201 Indian rupees). We were told that the picture would be framed, with a safari background and gifted. We were excited as well as scared at the same time. We decided to go for it whatever may be the consequences.
We were asked to sit close to each other, without an inch between our laps. A guy carried the cub and placed it on our laps, length-wise. It was drinking milk from a feeding bottle (I never knew tigers drink milk-they proved they are from the cat family!). It had it's eyes partly closed, completely concentrating on the milk. That was some relief to us as we were trying not to breathe and wake it up from its state of trance. We could feel the heavy panting while the cub was drinking the milk. We managed a small smile when the photographer requested us to say ‘cheez’. The only thing we both were focusing on was the amount of milk left in the bottle, as we knew that it won’t be long till the cub realizes that HUMANs are holding it!
Lucky for us and the others who were in line to hold the cub, there was no scarcity of milk in the Safari park :)
This one is for you Seethu a.k.a Sridevi.
The New England aquarium is a treat for all animal lovers!
We were surrounded by beautiful creatures in water. My favorite spot in the aquarium was the Penguin habitat. There were these cute penguins- a few swimming in water, a few stretching on the rocks and some lazying around. It was an incredible feeling to be so close to them.
One incident which caught my attention was that of an instrument that was placed on the rails, for the spectators to use. It was shaped like a telescope and the end of its mouth was shaped like a fish. When it is switched on, it would act like a torch and will light up in the form of a fish under water (where the penguins were swimming. Don’t know how many of u can visualize such a thing! This torch was basically used to fool the poor creatures. Whenever someone lighted the torch, all the penguins would swim fast to the light, assuming it to be a fish. The torch could be moved up and down, left and right, and this would in turn move the “fish” under water and the penguins will keep chasing it (until someone switches off the torch). I tried my hand at fooling the penguins too, but later felt sympathetic towards them when I saw the others doing it.
Wonder if there will be a time when penguins would be able to read and write. Then, I am sure they would be able to leave an appropriate comment for this blog ;-)
Thailand 2009: Safari World
The Safari World (or Safari Park as some may call it) was one of the most refreshing part of visiting Thailand. There were numerous animals like Lions, Tigers, Zebras, Giraffes and many of them which we could not even recognize. There were many fun shows around the park like sea lion show, dolphin show, monkey show, all of which were organized pretty well. The best part about the whole safari was the offer of taking a picture with a tiger cub, which was half our size, for just 350 bahts (currency of Thailand. For those who are curious: 1 Thai baht = 1.37605201 Indian rupees). We were told that the picture would be framed, with a safari background and gifted. We were excited as well as scared at the same time. We decided to go for it whatever may be the consequences.
We were asked to sit close to each other, without an inch between our laps. A guy carried the cub and placed it on our laps, length-wise. It was drinking milk from a feeding bottle (I never knew tigers drink milk-they proved they are from the cat family!). It had it's eyes partly closed, completely concentrating on the milk. That was some relief to us as we were trying not to breathe and wake it up from its state of trance. We could feel the heavy panting while the cub was drinking the milk. We managed a small smile when the photographer requested us to say ‘cheez’. The only thing we both were focusing on was the amount of milk left in the bottle, as we knew that it won’t be long till the cub realizes that HUMANs are holding it!
Lucky for us and the others who were in line to hold the cub, there was no scarcity of milk in the Safari park :)
This one is for you Seethu a.k.a Sridevi.
Comments