Honolulu Zoo

We visited the Honolulu Zoo and though it was small, it was pretty nice. I actually prefer that they are small, I get really exhausted trekking through zoos for hours. This tree was outside of the entrance. These tress were all over the place and very interesting. The trunk would grow and then the branches would send down these things that look like skinny vines, but once they reach the ground they become roots and start getting huge. This was one of the biggest ones we saw, and even though it looks cool, it did not smell good in there. Apparently all the homeless people live in trees just like this one. I could have kept walking inside it and it was like little rooms made from these limbs/roots. So the smell of human waste was very strong. YUCK! I was like, "Theo hurry and take the picture so I can get out of here!"
First we walked through the birds. Now birds are nice, but I wanted to get to the real big and exciting animals, like the elephant or the lions. But my kids, especially my girls were so excited to see these birds. They kept oohing and aahing over ever cage we came by. Pretty soon we weren't even stopping in front of the cages anymore because they would stare at one for so long.
We finally made it to the elephants, but Miriam was actually more impressed with the little stone elephant figurines that were in the exhibit.
They saw these hippos and thought, "wow elephants, HEY something we can CLIMB ON!!!"
This turtle was huge! And he came walking right up to us eating grass the whole way, like a huge turtle lawnmower.
This big guys name is Rusti, he is over 300lbs! It was almost freakish to see him grab the ropes and pull himself up on the poles and hammocks. His fur was so long, it looked as if he had this long fur cape on.
Climbing again. I think this was my kids favorite part of the zoo. I was looking at a sleeping lioness and they could have given a rat's posterior.
These apes were pretty funny. I think it was this guy here that ran at the glass at some other kid. She was probably not much older than Emma, but she fell down backwards and started crying he scared her so much. It was pretty intense seeing that thing coming right at you even though there is this thick piece of glass between the two of you. He seemed to like Emma though and she was transfixed. We sat there for probably 10 minutes just watching them walk back and forth or just munching on their snack like this guy.
We did skip some of the Safari part of it. It was lunch time and the kids were getting grumpy. The giraffe statue was the closest Tobie got to actually seeing one. But SanFran has a great zoo, so we can catch them all up with their Safari animals some other day.