The ZooZoo! Part TwoTwo! (just seemed necessary, you know?)
I should mention that the dog on the poster above is the same one in the cage below. Poor thing. I've never seen a dog look so pathetic and obviously depressed. He needs a little doggie xanax or something. But...let me just say what we're all thinking....he's in Korea, he could have it much worse. (Like be on a plate instead of in a cage.)
The most unbelievable part of my time at the ZooZoo was easily the orangutan. (At least I think that's the kind of primate it was.) This poor primate was stuck in a booth with its handler, taking pictures with scads of kindergaten students. He was bored out of his little monkey mind. When one of the last kids of the group in front of ours went up and sat down beside it, he put his hand up on the wall, where he perfectly blocked the kid's face. It seemed very intentional. One of the teachers in that group shook her bottle of pomegranate juice at the monkey. So the monkey reached out and took it. I'm expecting the handler to get mad and take the bottle away. But....no. The monkey tries to open the bottle, which he eventually succeeds in doing holding the bottle with his feet and using his hands to open it. Then he tips the bottle upside down into his mouth and drinks the contents. Amazing. Astounding. At a later point someone in our group gave him a juice box. That seems a little extreme, right? Well, I know I saw the monkey take the straw off himself. I can't quite remember if he got it into the box on his own, but he held it and drank it all by himself. It was amazing. And he had quite a thing for foreigners. When Beth, Adam's wife, went up to take a picture holding Owen, their little boy, the monkey got quite interested. He held up his hand and waved them towards himself. When Beth walked up, the monkey held out his hand and she took it. It was amazing! Then the monkey just looked into her eyes. Same thing when I went up there. The handler told us through a translator that the monkey liked foreigners. Anyway, the pictures are in the next post. It was truly a surreal experience. Looking into the monkey's eyes weren't like looking at Daive's eyes. Of course, if Daive were to get mad or fly off the handle, she couldn't do to me the harm that this monkey could, so that could be a part of it too. It was bizarre.
