lions and tigers and bears, oh my

Well, no bears, because they were closed off (in that we couldn't get to them, not emotionally) but we did see some pandas! Yep, today we went to the zoo, and then the aquarium. It was really good, exciting to see the pandas and the aquarium was amazing.

In fact it was pretty much a media scrum with everyone trying to get a good shot. I guess it will be good practice for the mixed zone at weight lifting. They look very cute, though apparently a drunk guy jumped into their enclosure a few years ago and go pretty seriously mauled...
Getting the 300mm lens for my new camera paid for itself today. I got a lot of very good shots of animals, I was actually going for the portrait look. I love the face this chap is pulling! There was a stall at the zoo where you could get a photo of yourself taken with a monkey on your lap for 20 yuan (A$3.20). I did it, and the photo's great. If I can find a scanner or something I'll put it up. The monkey was very well trained and posed for the camera!
I really like this shot, but gees, I was glad there were two fences between me and this guy. I love that you can see the green of his eyes, and that it looks like he's staring right at you. 

The enclosures for some of the animals were pretty cruel though. The tiger might have been in a three by five metre cage, but that's pretty generous estimates. The worst thing was two adult elephants and a calf in an area, perhaps fifteen by five metres. It was so small. There were doors out to outdoor enclosures, still small but better than nothing. I hope that they just had them indoors for a particular reason. Still, this is the sort of stuff PETA should be targeting, not the bloody Australian sheep farmers.
Just as I was turning my camera to this eagle, he decided to do the whole US coat of arms thing. It was pretty cool, and I'm glad I got it. Also got a lot of pics of giraffes, lions, zebras and a whole heap of other stuff.
There was a lot of cool stuff at the aquarium too. I really like the colours in the photo, and the turtle seemed pretty happy. It was also really cool to see the underside of a sting ray, and see that it has a face! Got some pretty cool photos of Nemo fish and sharks.

They had a Sea World-esque dolphin and seal show, and it was fantastic. Yes, this guy is riding two dolphins. How you can train dolphins to do this sort of stuff is beyond me. They can do some pretty massive jumps too. But they were coming on command, and hoolahooping with their noses, and balancing balls, and jumping out of the pool... all sorts of crazy stuff. It was really, really good.