Ever since the little one turned 2 and considered big enough (by yours truly obviously) to be further introduced to the animals (as the usual exposures are mainly thru books and flash card apps), we finally got to the zoo - 2 weeks ago (tho the National Zoo is like hmpp..less than 10 minutes away from our place).

For a start, my last visit to the Zoo was eons ago with a darling cousin of mine. I remembered that the visit was pretty brief because it was, well...ehem..boring.

On the sunny Saturday morning, armed with 2 tickets that I bought online on Groupon (which were RM9 cheaper compared to the normal price, what a cheapskate to do? Kids below 3 -  FOC) and a mountain of excitement (I'm excited about finally bringing my own kid to the zoo, like how old I am again?), we were already there by 10AM. Sungguh semangat.

When we got there, it was pretty packed with kindy kids on a school trip and we spent the 1st 15 minutes at the on going animal show and then it got pretty boring(I'm sorry, but the voice of the lady-presenter adelah annoying), so we decided to keep going as we still have the entire zoo to roam and it's getting hot.







All in all, we spent almost 3 hours there - mostly at the reptile place to watch the giant tortoise and the gang, the goat (hai la, nak tengok kambing pon kena pi zoo and how they smell), deer, cow of different kind, elephants and giraffe.

Couldn't really see the tigers as they were already hiding from the heat. Couldn't spot any big crocodile either. No bear. Bohooo.

Honestly, I'd say that the zoo is somewhat menyedihkan. Some of the animals are pretty sad looking, some of the cages were too hmpp..how should I put it, erm..poorly maintained kot? Like the hornbill cage, too many pokok/lalang and whanot in there - that we had trouble spotting the bird - but maybe the cages are being kept that way intentionally (berperasangka baik), untuk menambahkan the jungle feel to it, ya know, to mimic the natural habitat - bak kata C***.

There were a handful of empty cages too. Makes ya wonder, these animals dah takde sebab mati due to poor maintenance ke ape? That sorta thing.

For RM30/entrance, I really can't say that it's a worthy trip as I think that some smaller zoo offers a better display of their animals albeit its smaller size (and the animals seem to be healthier too). The car park rate is somewhat on the high side, I think we paid like RM6 for our 3 hours stay - no wonder some zoo-goers would prefer to park along the road side/outside the zoo entrance.

Tata. We won't come again (at least for the next few years that is)

So yea, the next Zoo Negara trip is probably in the next 5 years. Our next upcoming macik-dan-pacik-membawa-anak visit gonna be the Aquaria KLCC as our little one loves sea creatures. I already got the tickets (online), so let's!