London Zoo

We promised C that we'd take her to the London Zoo so we made the trip this morning. Here is J & C walking to the bustop and C waiting for the bus.

The zoo itself was pretty great. There is a big focus on environmentalism and conservation so most of the animals were 'cage-less' or at least as much as possible. Here is C checking out a hippo.

The zoo had all the big animals plus lots of smaller ones too. The monkey exhibit was one of my favorites. It was a closed off section where the monkey's played freely. The keepers would put out trails of fruits and the monkeys would come out of the bushes and hop from tree to tree. They were climbing above you, in front of you, next to you - every where you looked you could find one. It was really fun to watch and you could get within inches of them.

There was a petting zoo and different playground areas for the kids tucked between the exhibits themselves. Here is C playing in a garden exhibit and sitting in front of a tee-pee.

Throughout our visit, C kept talking about finding the rides. Clearly the Oakland Zoo spoiled her into thinking that every zoo had rides. But on our way out, she immediately spotted the Carousel. Her faced lit up and she started screaming "there's a carousel, there's a carousel". There were two in fact. A traditional one that we were all set to ride until we saw the price - £2.50 per person plus you had to pay for the adult standing next to the child. We just couldn't do it on principal. Not to mention that we still find ourselves converting everything to dollars so the 15 dollar carousel ride was just not.going.to.happen. So we steered C to the 'big girl, do-it-yourself' carousel for £1. Much more reasonable and still delivered lots of smiles.

After the zoo, we walked around the bordering neighborhood a bit. I just loved this purple house.