Leaves of my life: Bronx Zoo

It's said that people go to zoo three times in their life. First time when one is kid, second time when they are parents and third time when they are grand parents. I have entered into 2nd phase of my life and wanted to show Aryan all the real life animals which he used to watch in Baby Einstein "Animal Neighbourhood" CD.

Bronx zoo was in NYC and was around 1 hr from my place so started early in the morning. You can be an excellent driver if you can move around in NY city without missing an exit. Well, I missed one of the exit and we were lost on the way. Finally took help from people in residential suburbs and reached Bronx zoo. This is the only green area I have found in NYC and my lungs got an opportunity to breath fresh air.

We got parking in Gate C and we realized that we have missed Aryan stroller. I knew Aryan is going to give me tough time today and he did. He was not very willing to walk and would catch my feet to lift him up. At the end of the day, my hands got pain and neck got stiff after holding him for 8 hrs. But he enjoyed every seconds, got to see few rare animals, smiled and clapped all the way which made my day.

Zoo entrance was greeted with clowns, few handshake and then snap. One of the clown offered Aryan to ride bicycle but he got scared and started crying. Finally, I lifted him up and moved towards "Sea Lion pool". It was a big pool where sea lion was having sun bath, diving deep into the pool and barking occasionally. Moving few steps there was "World of Birds" and got view of some of the rare and colourful birds.

Nimisha at the entrance

At the entrance

Clown

Aryan crying and clown holding him on bicycle

Sea Lion

Have you thought why you never find cows, goats, sheep, buffalo and horses in Indian zoos? When you can find them on middle of road why would kids go to zoo to see domestic animal. In US, these animals are rare to see and are found in zoo. Aryan got chance to touch few of them. Though there were people and kids feeding these domestic animals but I was not sure whether Aryan should also feed these animals. What if they bite or chew his tiny fingers?

Goat

Now it was time to rest and have lunch. Aryan is going through teething stage and gave us hard time in eating food. He just ate one small packet of baby yogurt in last 9 hours. We tried hard but since he was crying after every spoon we left after some try.

Aryan having lunch

Now it was time to fly in air with "Skysafari", a cable car ride giving bird's eye view of zoo and gave a wonderful view of NYC. We travelled from zoo center to "Wild Asia" to get flavour of Asian animals. There was queue for camel ride so we left and went for other attraction, monorail ride to get glimpse of deer, rhinos, elephant, lions, tigers, Giraffes and wild horses.

Wild horse

Elephant

View from monorail

Which is the tallest animal?

Skysafari

Peacock

Deer

Camel ride

Monorail ride

Aryan relaxing after hard work

Aryan in desert

Skysafari

Last time I saw monkey was in our honeymoon trip at shimla and "Monkey house" reminded me to one of those old day.It was fun watching them hanging from trees, jumping from one branch to another.

Now it was time to see small bugs and butterflies in Butterfly garden. The garden was well maintained and had number of colourful, rare butterflies.

Peek a booe

Butterfly Garden

Aryan waiting for bug ride

Butterfly Garden

If I had wings, I would have been butterfly

Besides this we also visited Congo Gorilla Forest,Mouse House, World of Darkness, World of Reptiles, Big Bears and it was one of the best zoo I have ever visited.

Gorilla