Green Mountains and Asimo

Weekends seem to be pretty busy lately between checking on the progress of the house and doing things with the kids. It makes the quiet weeks at home with the kids pretty nice!

Anyway, last weekend was no exception. We spent Saturday at Khao Khiaow Zoo -- or Green Mountain Zoo. It is an open zoo meaning you drive through and stop to see the animals along the way. You can even feed many of the animals. So here are a few pictures of what we got to see and experience:

An amazing "bug collection". (Remember doing those insect collections in Jr High?) This was phenomenal...the above picture was only one of the many boxes displaying butterflies found in Thailand. Then there were the dragonflies, the regular flies, the grasshoppers and on and on. All we could say is "Isn't God sooo creative??"

One of the things that made this zoo fun was that you could get so close to many of the animals. Here we are feeding the deer. There were probably 30 deer in this little area, and we were able to walk right up to them, feed them and pet them.
We ate our lunch right here by the giraffes. They, unlike the deer, were very interested in eating. If they saw food in your hand they headed toward you. The deer were walking away from our offerings. This isn't that great of a picture, but I chose it because if you look carefully, you will see the very long tongue of this giraffe coming out and twisting around the vegetable that Helen was offering it. I really enjoyed how his tongue could wrap around his food! :)

Riding the elephants. You know, we rode an elephant bare back in Chiang Mai last year, and though it was a little scary, I think it was way more comfortable than this ride! Or maybe it has to do with being 35 weeks pregnant...



Checking out the tigers. We got to see a couple of beautiful white tigers.


And some funnies for you. "Best Friends" (Not sure what Daniel was making a face at!)

Roaring like a lion...(We just came from seeing the lion and hearing him roar.) Too bad there is no sound on this blog.



The only reason I put this picture in is for my 2 college friends and my mom who want to see how big I look with this pregnancy! (Don't laugh too hard, Trish and Jill!) Behind us is a really neat stone carving of lions although it is a little difficult to see.

I never knew how much fun it would be to take your kids to the zoo. We have been several times with Helen and Daniel and every time we go their excitement over seeing the animals is contagious. This was such a fun trip because we could "experience" the animals more than most other zoos. Recently we have been talking about how God created everything "just right". And that was the theme for this day.

On Sunday, we took the kids to see Asimo. Now, if you are like Pun, you probably know exactly who I am talking about. If you are like me, you are probably saying, "Huh?" Or maybe I am the only clueless one! Asimo is the famous Japanese robot. He has never toured South East Asia, so having him visit Thailand first was a big deal. We got to see him walk, run, dance, serve food and some other interesting things. Unfortunately for me, I understood very little of the program since it was all in Thai. But it really was quite something to see. And yet, in all of man's "creative ability" this is the closet he has come to inventing something "creature-like". Asimo is amazing in many ways, but I can't help to compare him to all the beautiful and graceful animals we saw at the zoo. The variety was astonishing, each creature having a mind of it's own. We think as humans we have a come a long way in our ability to invent, but it will never compare to the Creator.