10th Largest Zoo!!!

Hello everyone, I hope that you are doing well!  It has been absolutely beautiful here in South Korea.  The weather has changed and its been around the mid 70's some days and high 70's others but there has been a constant breeze making it even nicer out in the sun.  This change in weather has made me so happy because it reminds me that soon it will start to get just a little cooler and the colors of fall will be among us and I'm excited to see all the different colors in the surrounding mountains.  It reminds me of when my mom and I used to go camping down to the Lake of the Ozarks in the fall and all the trees were always a beautiful orange and red color with just a hint of green left, it truly is one of the most gorgeous times of the year! 
Anyway, what is more perfect to do when the weather becomes nice like this?  Go to the zoo of course, and that's just what we did yesterday!  I had been told a little while back about the zoo in Seoul and that it was super nice so I decided to look it up and found that it was considered the 10th largest zoo in the world!!  Umm hello, I was sold right then that we were going.  It took us about an hour on the subway to get there but it took us directly to the entrance of the park so we didn't have to worry about getting off the subway and wondering around trying to find it.  I quickly realized that when we got there I had actually been to part of the park before not knowing it was all one HUGE park.   You see we go on field trips every Friday and a few weeks ago we went to an art museum that happened to be inside this park.  The park its self is called Seoul Grand Park and I completely understand the grand part now.  This park not only has a zoo, it has the art museum and a little theme park as well all inside it! I'll post a link at the end of this so you can take a look at this place, it really is pretty cool, this park is surrounded by mountains! 
When we got there we understood right away why it was considered the 10th largest not to mention it might be one of the most beautiful parks we've even been to.  To get to the entrance of the zoo you could either ride a tram car up OR you could take a ski lift...yes I said ski lift!! We decided to take the tram car only because at the time we weren't sure where to get the other tickets but it ended up being a really pretty ride so it was no loss to us.  We saw all kinds of animals from all over the world and the best part was at the same time we were getting a nice workout because we were walking up and around this mountainous area the whole time.
Ok so I know you've all been to a zoo and its not a big deal, but this zoo just seemed different.  The animals were just a little bit closer and a lot of them weren't behind huge thick glass that was too dirty to really get a good look.  In almost all the monkey areas they were so close that if you stuck your hand out and the monkey did too you could actually touch the little guy!  The animals were also a lot more active, we heard a tiger growling, very loud I might add, and also saw a couple of bears play fight/wrestle with each other for a good 10 mins before we finally left and they were still at it.  It was also super quiet and kind of peaceful, no kids running around screaming or crying just people out enjoying the weather and animals with their families or friends. 
One of the weirdest things that we saw, that I've never seen before, was in the bird of prey area.  We were walking around this area with huge birds like different kinds of vultures and eagles and we came to this cage that had some kind of ugly looking vulture in it, I think it was a vulture at least.  Anyway, you could get pretty close to the cages and this bird was walking back in forth in front of us when it dropped its head down and came up with a little dead/torn apart mouse and dropped it on the outside of the cages ledge.  At first we were like awww no there goes your food buddy but then the thing stuck its head out through the bars of the cage!  Now don't misunderstand me this thing did not have a small head and the bars were not super far apart.  This thing wanted his food so bad that he turned his head every which way and managed to wiggle it through to get the mouse back.  He was just standing there with his whole head and neck out looking at us like what I'm hungry then kind of wiggled a little and pulled it back in!  haha it was so cool to see and if Logan or I would of had our hand out taking a picture or something I'm sure I'd be typing this all with a missing digit or two!  So besides the birds, monkeys, tigers, and bears, oh my!  ;)  We also saw snow leopards, grey wolfs, hyenas, European flamingos (they're a really pretty bright orange pinkish color), sloths and several other animals.  Because the park was set up in the mountains it also had amazing scenery with trails trees and flowers everywhere and a little stream that people were able to go down and play in or just relax by and have a picnic by.  We spent 5 hours walking around this place and decided to take the ski lift back down to the parking lot.  The ski lift is for sure the way to do it next time, it went over part of the park and a large lake as well as just the fact that you had great views of the surrounding area.  Even after all the time we spent wondering around we still did not get a chance to see it all so we will be going back for sure and I can't wait!
Like I've said many times in this blog it was awesome and I really hope that some friends get to come visit us as well as my mom so we can take them back to see it for themselves!  Now if you know me at all, you know that when I'm somewhere new and exciting and have my camera I will take tons of pictures, well this was no different, I took a ton and I promise that I will try to have them up on my facebook soon so you all can see them.  Until then I hope you all are able to sit back and relax some.  Lots of love until next time!

http://english.seoul.go.kr/cav/att/seoulzoo.php