For my birthday this year, I went to visit my sister who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Actually, that’s just an excuse. I wanted to visit her before Christmas, and my birthday was the only occasion we could think of. So I went there, and we did lots of stuff– visit Auckland, Lord of the Rings tour, but for my birthday itself, because she had work, she suggested I go to the zoo. There’s not many attractions in Wellington, after all, and especially if you’re already going on the Lord of the Rings tour, there wouldn’t be a lot left. So I followed her suggestion and went to the zoo last September 17th of this year. (Notice how I subtly let you know that that’s my birthday? )

Before going, I stopped by a convenient store to buy a bottle of water and a big cookie. My sister had already left for work, and I’m not crazy about doing the dishes so that was my breakfast (and lunch, actually) for that day. I left my sister’s apartment around 12 noon, stood at the bus stop for a few minutes and was at the zoo by 12:30PM.

The bus cost me 5NZD, and it was already roundtrip. I found out later on that that’s actually a bus Day Pass in Wellington. You can ride the bus unlimited times for the day for 5NZD. Isn’t that cool? Anyway, if I hadn’t gotten the day pass, the ticket would’ve cost me 3.5NZD per trip.

Newtown is one of those small towns on the outskirts of the Central Business District of Wellington. One of the tour guides I encountered said that houses in that area were cheap, and so was the rent, so its population was mostly young married couples. The neighborhood looked nice.

Entrance to the zoo was 15NZD. It comes with a map and a schedule of the talks/feeding times of the animals. I felt bad because I missed the talk about the tiger (that happened 12nn), but I made it just in time for the talk about the sun bears. OK no, I actually had to run a somewhat uphill path to get to the sun bears in time, but it was all worth it.

The sun bear is apparently the smallest bear in the world, the tallest grows only up to 5 feet. And it can climb trees, and has a long tongue because it eats insects and plants, unlike “meat eating” bears. They’re pretty cute, too. They have a yellow ring on their chests, which is why they’re called sun bears.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about all the animals I saw. You can just research about animals on the internet anyway, but the zoo was nice because it was very natural, in the sense that the animals don’t look like they’re caged. Some of them only have low fences to keep them from going towards people. And I found out something else from looking at the “Old Elephant House”.

I know that name’s misleading. You don’t actually see an old elephant in there, but instead some bats and a few species of reptiles. But it’s called that way because apparently, back in the day (the 1960’s, I think), Wellington Zoo became famous for having an elephant in it. There was a parade and everything when they brought in the elephant to the city, and lots of people went to the zoo to see it. When it died, the zoo administration talked about getting another one. However, by that time, the concept of the “zoo” was more about preserving animals, and not anymore just for people to see exotic stuff (because animals have rights now). And because elephants survive longer when they’re in a group, and the Wellington Zoo couldn’t afford to keep a group of elephants, they decided not to put elephants in the zoo anymore. Still, because of its reputation, they kept the old elephant house.

It was just beside the kiosk, which sold food, but I didn’t look anymore at how much the food was. I already had my cookie.

I stopped by the picnic area to eat it. And because it was winter, and a weekday, there wasn’t anybody at all in the picnic area. I was alone. So I ate my cookie alone. And the whole time I was eating it, only about three or four people passed by. One of them was a zookeeper, so there were actually only two other tourists that passed by. I guess the place is busier in the summer.

Actually, during all the talks that I attended (sun bear, giraffe, pelican, kiwi), there were less than 10 of us who showed up. Definitely not their peak season. And I guess it’s not exactly one of those “must see” place in Wellington. Still, I like animals the appropriate amount and didn’t regret that I went.

I left around 5PM. I wanted to buy a penguin from the souvenir shop, but remembered that there weren’t even any penguins on display in the zoo, so that was pretty pointless. Plus, I didn’t have enough money. So I just went out, and waited for the bus, which wouldn’t come until another 20 minutes.

The Newtown Park was just beside the zoo and I got to see a part of it. I wasn’t able to go too far, but I think it’s like Central Park in New York. There were a few joggers that passed by, and some people walking their dogs, and some kids in the playground. Across the zoo was a convenient store, and I spent some time in there, too. It was mostly to get inside somewhere, because the wind was really strong and it was really cold. And the jacket I brought was, well, let’s just say I wasn’t prepared for that kind of weather.

The bus finally came after several gusts of wind and another cookie (I bought in the convenient store across the zoo). I got off at the middle of Lambton Quay where my sister said we should meet.

On the way back, I told her about all the animals I saw and she asked me, “Did the animals perform?”

I realized then that what I read from the Old Elephant House was right. We did used to think that the zoo was where you could see animals do stunts and stuff. It’s strange how this change happened in the world, and I didn’t even notice it. Then again, I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a kid, so I guess it was just right that I went to one this year. Though I think what makes it most memorable was because I went there alone. I’ve never gone anywhere alone, not really. And it was certainly a different experience. The area around the zoo, and even in the zoo itself was very quiet. At times it was even creepy. Or peaceful. I still haven’t decided yet.

For more pictures, see my Multiply: I Belong to the Zoo
I made a video, too: Wellington Zoo, 17-Sept-08

It’s inevitable. When you spend a few days in another country (or any other place that has a different language/dialect), you get used to hearing another language being spoken. At first it’s real annoying since you can’t understand anything everybody says, but after a while, you pick up a few words yourself, and at least in my case, I get interested enough to learn more and more words in that language. I am far from a language expert, I can only speak two languages fluently (and those are the very boring English and Filipino, which are both languages spoken in my country anyway), but I’d definitely learn another language if the opportunity arose.

My Mom and I spent a good 8 days in Egypt (or was it 9 days? I really can’t remember), and during that time, although the tour guides we spoke to and the friends we were with all spoke English (and Filipino), we still heard a lot of Egyptian Arabic being spoken around us. One such word that kept being said was “Y’alla”, which according to our tour guide meant “Let’s Go” in Egyptian. It’s usually said many times continuously, so as to make it sound more urgent, i.e. “Y’alla Y’alla!”.

A lot of people said it, tour guides mostly (and there were a LOT of tour guides scattered around), for obvious reasons. It’s probably one of the words that most tourists understand, and there’s even a travel agency there called “Y’alla Tours”. I saw that name painted on a van.

Anyway, while we were there, it was almost automatic for us to move whenever we heard it. It was quite fun, really. And it’s the only Egyptian word I really remembered. I got so used to it that the day after we got back to the Philippines and I took the bus to go to work, when it stopped at the station I was supposed to get off at, and the bus driver announced the station, I thought I heard it again.

“Y’alla! Y’alla!”

I turned my head sharply to look at the person who said it, expecting to see someone in a turban and a long-sleeved shirt, thinking for a moment that I was still in Egypt and the people around me were speaking Egyptian. But it turned out to be a very Filipino-looking bus driver in a white polo barong and black slacks. And I realized that what he said was not Egyptian, but in fact the name of the place we had stopped at:

“Ayala! Ayala!”

I laughed at myself as I got off the bus and was laughing the whole time (I know I probably looked crazy to the other people around) I walked to the next place that had another bus to take me to my workplace (yes, sadly, the Philippines is still full of buses and not enough trains). How funny language is.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced things not going according to plan, especially in traveling. Flights get delayed, bagagges lost, emergencies come up, and a lot of other things can happen that can upset us whenever we’re traveling. Sometimes, even the smallest things can ruin an entire day’s itinerary– malfunctioning coffee maker, broken water heater, etc. When these things happen to me, the usual result is that one of the spots we’re supposed to go to gets cancelled. Or maybe we’ll go to a nearer, less interesting place instead. This has always upset me and made me feel bitter about not seeing something I’ve always wanted to see. Although, my recent trip to Japan has made me reconsider my opinion on these little mishaps that happen. Aren’t the unexpected events the things that make life interesting, after all?

The plan was to see Tokyo City from the top of the Metropolitan Bldg. It’s a government building so going to the top is free. According to my mom who’d been there some years ago, the view from the top is really nice. We’d already come from Harajuku and Chinatown and it was pretty late, but figured we could still go up because it supposedly closed at 9PM. So despite our being tired, in fact my parents were no longer able to come with us (we’d been walking the whole day) and they just stayed at the nearest Starbucks instead, we still went. Mostly it was to take long shots of Tokyo at night time. We’d already seen the city from the Tokyo Tower, but it was daytime when we were at the tower, and we wanted to see the city in a different light.

After a few minutes, we reached the lobby of the building, and there was a sign on it. It was in Japanese of course, but my friend who was with us who is Japanese, Yumi, was of course able to read it. And she told us what it said:

CLOSED FOR THE DAY.

The schedule on when it would be open was written under it. And the earliest that it would open would be the next day, when she (Yumi) was no longer available, and we (my siblings, parents and I) already had other places to visit in our itinerary.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that they closed on holidays,” she apologized. We told her it was okay, and then we just laughed about it. We looked at each other then with the expression ‘What now?!’

We were standing at a sort of plaza in front of the building. There wasn’t anyone else around since it was already late. From where we were standing, the Metropolitan Building looked really good — it was lit from the bottom, and it glowed against the black sky. We were there anyway, and we had nothing else planned for the rest of the night so my brother suggested we take pictures. And this is the result:

Metropolitan Building in Tokyo behind us: (L-R) Me, my brother, Yumi, my sis

On our last night in Tokyo, we went up the Roppongi Tower and saw Tokyo by night from the top of that building. I guess it all worked out for the best because not only did I eventually get to see Tokyo by night, from the top of a building, but we got to take that really cool picture as well. I for one, haven’t seen anyone who’s visited Tokyo who has a picture like that. Although the point isn’t really that we have a unique picture (I’m sure there are others who’ve taken pictures like it, and I just haven’t seen them). I’m happy that despite things not going according to plan, or perhaps, because things didn’t go according to plan, we were able to see something different, and experience something different.

Truth is, that picture-taking session was one of the most fun activities for me for the time that we were in Japan. We thought of all these crazy poses and kept laughing at ourselves for going to a building that was already closed. And we didn’t feel embarrassed looking silly because there was no one else around. I think it was the best way to end that day, especially since it was also the last day that Yumi would be touring us around since she already needed to prepare for her classes the day after. I guess sometimes, things work out really really well, despite not planning anything, despite not being prepared… Or maybe it’s especially because things weren’t planned, and we weren’t prepared, and that’s why life gave us a nice surprise.