On the Wednesday that we were in Winnipeg, we had a full day of events! One of MM's sons, whom I used to babysit when they were little is now called 'Doctor' and has lovingly and jokingly upgraded to 'boy toy'. :D Luckily his real girlfriend and DH have good sense of humor. ;) That day, he was free so the four of us went to the newly renovated zoo.
In the twelve years that I lived in Winnipeg, I've only visited the Assiniboine Zoo once. It wasn't anything special, just another zoo in another city. I had been hearing Winnipeg people raving about it since the renovations, especially about the new Polar Bears; so we decided to check it out.
It was a hot summer day with clear blue sky (that's not rare for Winnipeg) that even I decided to put sunscreen on. We bought tickets on the spot, but if you prefer you can buy your tickets online. The zoo was organized into several zones, most of which can be reached by riding a free open-air shuttle. We started out by walking through the Grassland & Boreal Forest Zone towards the Journey to Churchill zone.
 |
| She took over the navigation job |
We reached the Churchill area and of course we had to take a picture with the sign :) I was trying to explain to Miss Kiki that in Churchill we could see Polar Bears and Beluga Whales, and that it's in the same province as Winnipeg. She said she already knew that from grade 2 in school. :D
Aside from Polar bears, in this area they were supposed to have Arctic fox, Snowy owl, Caribou, Muscox, and Seal. Unfortunately, the Arctic fox was nowhere to be seen. We did see several Polar bears though, and that was pretty amazing. I am a bit torn about zoos in general. On one side, I feel bad that they are trapped in there. However, how else would millions of kids and adults be able to see them up close and hopefully create more love and awareness towards nature.
 |
| Such large window with barely visible seams |
And finally.... we reached the Polar bears! They were big and fluffy and these were still cubs, I believe. They swam around the pool and they looked so cute. However they were doing the exact same movements over and over again it was like a routine. So I wonder if they were actually depressed there...
From the Churchill zone we continued to browse the other areas but the boy had to leave early to take his pooch to the vet. DH, Miss Kiki, and I went to the Extreme Bugs zone. There were billboard ads of this zone and Miss Kiki got excited because she loves bugs (except spiders)...
Well we got there and she was absolutely disappointed because it turned out that the Extreme Bugs display did not showcase any real bugs but instead, they had these giant bug robots that made noises and somewhat moved. Who goes to the zoo to see robots anyway?! It was hot and dry and we were sweaty, sticky, and thirsty. They had some water fountains in the zoo but not a lot. There was a water bottle refill station but we didn't have a bottle. We ended up buying a bottled drink from a vending machine and then refilled that bottle.
Soon after, we waited at the shuttle stop and got a ride all the way to the exit...
We left the zoo in time for a late lunch, and we went to a newer Japanese restaurant that had good rating for their ramen and other non-sushi food. It was called Dwarf no Cachette. We met up with the boy again for late lunch. We each ordered a dish that sounded good plus a gyoza appetizer to share. While waiting for our food to arrive, Miss Kiki went to the second floor to browse their gift shop.
The dishes they served was very large, I almost felt like one bowl can feed 2 adults. We were disappointed with the flavours... it didn't taste that good nor authentic. It was a bit funny when I ordered my food, the server couldn't understand my pronunciation of their Japanese-named dishes. I had to say it with a Canadian-English accent for her to understand. :D
Please stay tuned for my next post, the other half of Wednesday in Winnipeg!
Comments
Post a Comment