Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Day 5: Talk to the animals









Today I got a call from the submarine company that the tour was cancelled so I have re-booked for tomorrow. Today I had my tour guides out and decided to go to Waikiki Aquarium. The aquarium was up the road from the zoo, so I just walked from my hotel. When I got to the aquarium I was given this phone receiver and it was a commentary on all of the exhibits. The exhibits were numbered and so you just pressed the number on you receiver. There were lots of colourful tropical fish and algae. They also had this cute tropical fish movie advising how to look after the beaches and taking care when out snorkelling. As the fishes mouths moved human voices would give the rules.
This was all inside. Then I went and saw the sea lions outside. There was a film crew there and the manager of the aquarium. The sealion went right up to the class. I heard the manager say that this sealion is partially blind and was rescued. He was a very cute sea lion.

After this I walked to the zoo. I spent about three hours at the zoo. There is a new elephant enclosure for the two elephants. I was watching the news last night and the animal rights activists are against this new enclosure stating there isn't enough room for the elephants. The elephants have got two acres of land to roam round in with a waterfall for them to enjoy. Quite an impressive enclosure.

After this I went and had some lunch. I noticed this year that those annoying peacocks had gone. I spoke to one of the zoo keepers and she said that the peacocks got scared around the food/eating area that they are in the shade. This made it more relaxed eating. While I was there it was feeding time. I got to see the giraffes, goats, turtles being fed. It was interesting watching them. The goats were at the petting. I was a bit nervous going into the goats enclosure as there were about the goats kicking and head butting you. There were about three adult fully grown goats and about five baby goats. The baby goats were gorgeous. They made such a scene and were crying out for food. As soon as the keeper dropped some food into the big goat's bowls they were quiet. I spent about three hours at the zoo.

After the zoo visit I made a booking at the Waikiki Tower revolving restaurant. I had seen this tower and thought it would be great to have dinner in it. It was one of those posh restaurants which served little bits of food on big plates. The food was flavour some. I had Beef Mignon served in a Soya Sauce, a potato and bacon croquette and baby spinach leafs. I also had a green garden slad with roasted walnuts and a mango brûlée desert. In total I paid $66 and this included two glasses of lemonade. Not bad considering the panoramic views of this 20 story building. The building moved round slowly and I was able to complete my three courses within one resolution.

Before I went to the restaurant I went to the spa pool at the hotel. It was lovely and very relaxing. The swimming pool was cold. I stayed in the spa until I was turning into a raisin. I spoke to these Australians in the pool. They were very interesting. One of the Australians was a fireman. He knew about the Christchurch earthquake, but he wasn't in the search and rescue team.



3 comments:

Jay said...

Hi Joy.
Sorry to hear your submarine trip was cancelled but sounds like you got to see lots of fish anyway.
The elephant enclosure sounds excellent. Maybe the activists hadn't seen it. Many elephants in the wild (or in captivity and working for their keep) would have worse conditions than those described by you.
Guess what? We have had a day of sunshine! Yay! Well that was yesterday. Today was pretty cloudy but quite warm.
Keep having fun and taking lots of pics.

Neville Paton said...

What a great trip you are having Joy.Interesting you nearly got caught wasting time attending a sales lecture on time care.The hotel should have told you as you get nothing for free these days.We went to one in Brisbane ,it was very hard to get away but got $100 for going at a cost of 3hrs valuable time.Keep up the informative blogs
Love Dad and Mum

Pat said...

Hi Joy,
Glad you are having a fantastic time on your much deserved holiday. We certainly enjoy reading all your travel news, look forward to it each day. When you wrote about the zoo I remembered it and also those pests (peacocks). They seem to like those children the next picnic table to us. Looking forward to your comments tomorrow.