The Melbourne Zoo

A couple days ago, we peeled our gross bodies off the couch and decided to check out the Melbourne Zoo, since it's super close to our apartment.  We're been to a couple zoos now in different parts of the world (Buenos Aires, Bangkok) and each is totally unique and and fun in it's own way.  Let's see what Melbourne has to offer!

We took the train one stop to Royal Park (yea, we're that lazy):

Alrighty!  We're in!  There are a few "encounters" you can reserve and buy, where you can get up close and personal with some of the animals, but they were all booked up (I guess you need to book online ahead of time), so we just wandered around.

Tapir:

Monkeys:

Backscratching (how sweet!):

I need to make Aaron scratch my back when we get home.

I don't know what this was, I just thought it looked cool:

Kangaroos!  Now I know we're in Australia:

Tazmanian Devil:

Random lizard in the Tazmanian Devil enclosure:

Some sort of crazy dragon-lizard climbing a tree:

Aviary:

I don't know what any of these birds are, sorry:

These are ducks (yay, I got one!):

Koalas:

All sleeping, so nothing exciting there.

Zebras and giraffes:

Tiger:

People actually graffiti-ed bamboo:

We took a break at the center of the park in this little courtyard:

and I had a quinoa salad (which Aaron said tasted like bird food):

The elephants were adorable!  They were playing and splashing and dunking each other into the water.  OMG it was amazing:

There was another elephant standing on the sidelines, watching all the action, debating if (s)he should get in and join the fun.  (S)he kept standing at the edge of the pool and lifting her foot, as if getting ready to dip it in, and then thought better of it and backed away.  (S)he did this 3 different times in 10 minutes and it was so funny!

In the end, (s)he never got in, but it was entertaining all the same.

Pretty flower:

Bugs and reptiles:

This one stole my heart, with it's big doe-eyes and it's cute pose:

I had the Karma-Chameleon song stuck in my head for an hour after this:

Check out this turtle covered in moss:

Aquarium:

Seals:

Penguins:

Meerkat:

Platypus:

It was so dark in the enclosure and the platypus was moving so fast, it was hard to get a good shot.

So that's the zoo!!

Then we went home (walked this time!) and I made steaks with a chunky chimichurri sauce and garlic mash:

and we watched the sun set:

Damn that's really something!  I've never seen actual rays come off of the sun like that.

Last night I made a chicken curry pot pie that was inhumanely good.

Dude!  It was killer.  I got the recipe from a cookbook in the library.  It was supposed to be veggie pot pie, but let's be real, it needed chicken.

and it was supposed to be done in little ramekins, but I didn't have any, so I just made a big pot pie.  Go big or go home, ya know?

My new book:

I'm about halfway and it's kinda lame, but I'm gonna finish just because I hate reading books halfway.  Sometimes the last page of a book can change everything.

So, that about does it on my end.  Tomorrow we're planning on going to St. Kilda, a really pretty beach town about 20 minutes away.  I'll take pictures!