London Zoo, National Gallery & Museum of London

When I got back from Paris, I spent Saturday lazing around and Sunday at London Zoo.

Phebe and I were excited for our trip to the zoo. We caught the tube to Camden Town and wandered down across Regent's Park towards the zoo gates. After spending far too long stuck in conversation with two random photographer guys standing outside the gates, we finally made it inside.

It was 12:30 and time for the creatures show. The show "arena" was quite small and a little delapidated, but the background music of "Circle of Life" was quite successful in getting the crowd (of about 20 people) excited about the impending appearance of exotic animals. The man presenting the show was extremely excitable and I must admit, Phebe and I were jiggling around like crazy people with cuteness anticipation.

THe show that followed was supercute. The animals were not especialy rare or special, but they were awesome. First was the rats. Then was Bob, the fabulous burrowing owl. He was very small and loved to run along the ground with his wings out forward like a zombie. Apparenlty they aren't very good at burrowing and live in ground hog burrows. he also flew around above us. A very handsome gentleman. Next up was some other kind of owl (I forget). This owl was a pro silent flyer- as he flew around above us we couldn't hear him until he flew past our faces. Then there were ferrets - which we got to pet. Very cute.

I think that the zoo is.. low on cash as the show wasn't exactly spectacular, although it was very cute. We then ambled around the zoos grounds. THe zoo in general, was not what we are used to in Australia. It has been around for almost 200 years and as such, is an "older" style zoo - the enclosures are not as "natural" as at home. Most of the enclosures were fine - and alot had been done up (the new gorilla kingdom was great), but the Big Cat enclosures were not good. There were 3 tigers, and they were all just pacing along the edges of their cages. You could see the track in the mud where they had been walking - back and forward, back and forward- for hours. THe lions had only a small enclosure and the serval was alone and also pacing.

At home, the big cats always have lots of stimulation - at dreamworld they are constantly kept interested - and it is the same at Australia zoo - lots of training and playing and work from the keepers.

It was really sad to see the tigers like that. We walked away from the enclosure unhappy, until seeing a sign that they are planning a huge new big cat enclosure to be opened in 2011... it looks great - i just hope the tigers can last that long without going crazy.

We kept going with our zoo time - exploring the insect house, the birds and the monkeys. An awesome surprise was wating for us in the "tropical forrest habitat". This was like a giant room that, once inside, had no bars. THre were lots of little Marmosets, monkeys, birds flitting around the heated greenhouse environment- ant the BEST thing of all were the two 3-toed sloths. OHMYGOSH they were just the raddest things ever. THe walkway was on the second storey, and there was a keeper on the ground level feeding the various creatures running to-and-fro. SHe gave the low hanging sloth a carrot, which it clasped like a bottle between its long, curved fingers. It did this sooo slowly, and after a few dropping incidents, finally began to slowly chew it's carot-ty treat. However, monkeys had been waiting in the wings to assail this sleepy tree dweller, and swarmed the poor sloth, stealing his carrot as soon as the keeper's back was turned. The sloth appeared to not notice the carrot was gone for a good 3 seconds, and kept trying to direct the food to its mouth. Poor Sloth-friend was totally bamboozled. THe keeper then gave him a lettuce leaf, which he rejected- and then another carrot, upon which the same monkey-ambush was performed. It was the cutest thing ever.

Another fun thing at the zoo was the giraffe enclosure.It was very.. pony club in appearance - except the stables were 3 storys high. The doors had the same open top and closed bottom as a stable door - only the top portion exposed the whole of the giraffes neck making for very comical dimensions.

We went to visit the owls, and they were very sad so we went away to a newer part of the zoo - and possibly the very best - the otter enclosure. It must have been feeding time, because the cheeky little fellows were all standing on their hind legs, looking over the fence and squeak squeak squeaking. THere was an "outcast" otter, who kept away from the group and occasionally randomly attacked one of them, starting a rolling otter punch-up. THey were constantly relocating in their enclosure and squeaking. at one point, the were squeaking so hard a few of them fell over. Most wonderful!

It was then zoo closing time, and we left feelig a little... underwhelmed. I don't think either of us could forget that path the tiger had made in the mud.

PART 2 - National Gallery
this was awesome.. but i now can't remember anything really about my visit other than I SAW VAN GOUGH'S SUNFLOWERS for real! I had a great day at the gallery.. but the specifics elude me

PART 3 - Museum of London
I visited the Museum of London the same day as the National Gallery. I can absolutely recommend this to anyone who visits London. The Museum of London charts the history of the London area since paleolithic times - through roman, medieval, tudor, victorian and modern times. It was absolutely fascinating - especially the roman section - imagining they they had lived here, exactly on the ground I was walking. THey had so many amazing artefacts and really informative exhibits.

I especially was fascinated to learn about the way people lived here throughout the past.

The modern section was really interesting as well - with every decade covered individually from the 1880's to present. Swinging london in the 60's was great - but I was very moved by the exhibit about the suffrogettes. They fought very very hard for their rights, and it was really eye-opening to see artefacts of the sort of opposition they came up against.

Of course, the 40's, encompassing the Blitz, was extremely powerful. I can't even imagine what it would have been like for Londoners in that time. So brave. I am definately a pacifist, but if someone was attacking my country like that, I would surely go and fight- do anything. Yes, the Londoners of that era were a brave lot.

Of all the museums I've been to so far, I would recommend the Museum of London first to any traveller - It's so important to learn about the places you travel to, and this museum told me everything I wanted to know - and more.