Journal no. 3

The Copenhagen Zoo


I didn't expect to go to the zoo, since I tend to avoid them on trips. They are usually depressing for me and the animals.
But since it was the only attraction anywhere near Visit Carlsberg, we took a short bus ride to get there.
And to my surprise, I enjoyed it a lot. I think it was to do with the Danish sense of design. The animals looked well, the zoo was a mixture of ultra-modern and traditional and it was generally very interesting.

It was founded in 1859! Making it one of the oldest zoos in Europe.

The first tall structure you see is the observation tower (no photo here) and nearby is this traditional looking building, which houses the zoo gift shop and some restaurants and bars.
We visited late afternoon and there were quite a few families with kids in tow.

The first animals we saw were the flamingos.

Nearby was a dual cage set-up for cute monkeys.

One of the fancy new exhibits was the Arctic Ring, which looked like an exciting white space dome from the outside. You had to walk for ages in the spacious ice-themed walkways to get to the actual polar bear bit in the center.

And of course, there were no polar bears to be seen.
I don't even know why we bothered. haha.
But we couldn't stay mad because the exhibit did offer us respite from the summer sun. And there were interesting polar-bear games for kids to try, like swat the seal on the screen to test if you have quick reflexes like the bears do. If you are successful, the screen gets splattered with red blood. Lovely.

Check out the design. So cool.
There are even lounge bean-bags on the deck.

There was reindeer.

A terribly bored bear who stood on its hind legs and sniffed at us.
Watching it kept me very entertained.

There were a bunch of dusty elephants. This is the baby.
Apparently there is a glass domed Elephant House, but I didn't see it at all.

I saw this though. I think it was the old elephant house.
If you watched Madagascar (the movie), buildings like these remind me of the old brick buildings they use in their New York zoo. Back then, people put animals in human houses, and even humans in zoos.

The most depressed chimpanzee I have ever seen.
It was just lying in front of the glass separating us from it, staring at us with an incredibly dour face for a while, until it was sick of looking at us and turned to its side to sleep.
I hope it wasn't feeling sick or depressed or murderous.

We went to the green areas after seeing the sad chimp, not expecting much.
But it was beautiful. Lush, loads of different birds flying and alighting, butterflies, toucans, and these crazy looking things that decided to parade in front of us.

Lazy seals basking in the sun.

I loved watching the tigers. There were 3 of them, and one of them jumped in the pond to swim.

Farm animals are a must. Except that these cows were huge!

And there was a goat enclosure. I saw this cute young girl romping with the baby goats inside the pen, and went in as well.
She was so into petting the kids, it was adorable, in a slightly terrifying way, because she was climbing over and under things to get close to them.

I thought this zoo was a really good attraction, especially if you go at the same time we did, since it wasn't crowded at all.