Shanghai has this really great Wild Life Park in PuDong. It is FOREVER far away but Courtney L and I decided to venture out last weekend. There is also the Shanghai Zoo that is pretty close to us, but the reviews of the Wild Life Park were much better. Apparently, it is the largest open space in Shanghai, and contains a ton of different animals. Additionally, there was supposed to be more interaction with the animals at the Wild Life Park verses the Zoo.
Well anyway, I took the metro over an hour out into PuDong to meet up with Courtney. Then we jumped on a bus and drove about 45 minutes to the Park (It is so crazy to think that we can drive over 2 hours and still be in the same “city”). Interestingly enough, while we were buying our tickets to get in, we ran into one of my children, Elisa and her family. Courtney and I are both close with the Ferrer family, but of course we did not want to be tied with my four year old student for the entire park trip so we chatted briefly, but went on our separate ways. We kept running into them throughout the day, which was nice.
So as soon as we got into the park, we rented a peddle car to drive around. It was so funny. It was kind of like a rickshaw… we sat next to each other on a bench and we each had peddles and one steering wheel (I drove of course). Here, we thought it would be fun and easier to drive around, however, little did we know, the park was full of hills so our legs were exhausted by the end of the day.
The Park has two different areas, sort of. The first section is just like a zoo, and it was rather disappointing. We rode along a path that curved around different animal cages/habitats. It was actually one of the most pathetic zoos I have ever seen because it seemed to only have one animal in each area – like one elephant, one gorilla, etc. I was also kind of looking forward to seeing different kinds of animals aside from the norm. Of course it had the usual monkeys, giraffes, flamingos, birds; but I was disappointed by the lack of diversity. There were a couple panda bears (which were adorable) and Lumers that were pretty cool. The Lumers were running free on an island that we went to. Apparently they were friendly, but they sure looked creepy – kind of like a monkey and a weasel mixed with really creepy red eyes. They were really friendly if you had fruit to share with them. We tried to give them some crackers, but they were not interested.
Well we flew through that section and to be honest, it was not great – nothing to rave about. There was the other section, but Yuri told us that it was not very fun and not to waste our time with the Safari ride. We were deciding whether to try the safari or just leave, but we figured what the hell and we jumped on the safari ride, really not knowing what to expect.
We got on a bus straight out of Jurassic Park – like a cage bus - and we started driving through these huge steal gates (just like Jurassic Park) to enter the area where the animals were running “free”. It was divided into different areas to keep the animals separate. First, we say all of the herbivores. There were so many animals running around, but the bus did not stop or anything, we just drove right through. Then we entered into the bear section. Right off the bat, a huge black bear walked right in the middle of the path in front of the bus. The bus driver stopped and grabbed a live chicken out of a cage on the bus and held it in front of the cage. The bear jumped up on the side of the bus clawing and salivating trying to get at the chicken. The driver held it a little higher, and the bear literally started climbing up the side of the cage trying to get to it. It was awesome. Eventually, the driver stuck the chicken through an opening in the cage and the bear snatched it right up. Poor chicken was screaming and having a heart attack I am sure, but hey, circle of life, I guess.
We drove into other sections where we saw Lions, Cheetahs, and Tigers. Each time, the driver would stop, grab a chicken and tease the animal a little bit to get a rise for entertainment, and eventual feed it to them. The animals definitely knew that it was a feeding truck. They saw us coming and they ran into the road, or lay in the road right in front of the bus so that it couldn’t go forward. They also chased the bus as we drove. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the Siberian White Tiger, which is my favorite animal of all time. There was only one, and it was sleeping off in the distance behind some shrubs, apparently, but I never saw it.
The Tiger part was my favorite. First, I never really realized how gigantic Tigers were. I mean, I knew they were big and everything, but I am sure it is amplified greatly when there is nothing but a steal fence separating me from five huge and hungry Tigers. They were circling the bus, jumping up on the sides, growling and clawing at the fence. I am pretty sure that if they were hungry enough, they could have gotten through the barrier to consume us. Luckily, they were willing to settle for a couple chickens. They were so cool looking and it was really exciting! At one point when a tiger was standing on its hind legs against the side of the bus at eye level with me, he growled and smacked his enormous paw against the fence and the entire bus screamed. I nearly hit the roof and peed my pants.
Well anyway, I would conclude that the safari was in fact the best part of the Wild Park and it made the two hour trip worth it. Sure it was a little gruesome, but it’s life. I would say that the best time to go is feeding time, otherwise, it probably wouldn’t be as exciting.
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