Kids went to what is predominantly a petting zoo for them, over the national holiday…
Strike a pose
Open 9-6pm, last entry at 5pm..
If you like animals you should probably budget an extra hour…
Fine, two extra hours…
The stables are clean, airy and relatively sunny…
Pick a child…
Horsie (real name “Wasabisabi”) ate my hand
(These horses are so used to being given treats they keep gently stamping their hooves for more carrots)
“Belle’s” stall was empty when we were feeding the others.. We soon find her here –
“All she wants for Christmas……”
Giving little kiddie rides! (Kids have to be 3 years and above)
Turns out, Belle is a bit of a celebrity
When she’s not horsing around at the end of the day
Photo op…
(Some attractions are quite crowded, but not so much the animal ones, strangely.. and all around, well-labelled flora and fauna…)
Wait, hold that thought –
This one time when Hamster Ninja went “Daddy can I have one?” she meant….. ……………………………………………………
Who let the cows out..
Rope playground
This the entrance to Animal Village, that houses emus, peacocks, goats, rabbits and guinea pigs
(In other words, Daddy Can I Have One City :D)
Those goat kids only drink milk though… and interestingly no one tries to touch them – our kids are probably the “worst” ones – I overhear one local mum telling her toddler something like “these things are full of worms” in Cantonese
We used to max out our leave for weeks in Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra, and drive out to many Aussie petting zoos and wine valleys with the kids; I’d say this large Petting Zoo Where No One Pets The Animals out in Yuen Long is at least comparable, but with one key difference – no little kids following the little kids (:D sorry) about and not much risk of stepping on animal poop most of the time because much fewer animals are roaming freely… In fact, I think the stalls don’t smell that much (those are animals after all) but I overhear at least a few complaints from local visitors, about the animals’ smell…
Just these two were out, plus the two dark coloured kids in a previous pic
They look like chicken eggs..
Rockstar calls this the largest guinea pig home in the world 😀
OK – this one, we’ve never seen in Aussieland 😀
What are all these people doing??
This is what they call “net fishing” – and initially we’re kinda dubious about all the little kids AND their parents crowding around this teeny little paddling pool with goldfish in it. There are a few other tubs around, all with goldfish in them, but you can’t erm, “net fish” anywhere else but in this pool…
Turns out, the “nets” (note the “used” pile at right) are flimsy, made of a very delicate paper, that breaks apart very easily if you try to chase the goldfish to catch them – even swishing the “nets” too vigorously in the water breaks the paper
“You’ll kill them -” Rockstar is stopped very quickly by attendants, when he uses his hands
As a result, both kids go through many, many, many nets, before……..
Success (note broken paper near goldfish’s tail).
Her too.
No kidding. That’s part of Rockstar’s total final haul.
And that’s part of her haul (I didn’t think to take final pictures of how many in total, but I think Rockstar had just under 20 and Hamster Ninja eventually had 8 or 9)
They spent more than an hour in the heat fishing for them things, and easily the first 20-30 mins they turned up absolutely nothing. Couldn’t catch even one goldfish. We initially even wondered how the little local kids before us managed to get 2 or 3 fish to exchange for prizes. It takes awhile to learn to move the “nets” slowly, because otherwise the fish break through the paper quite easily…
In the end it was very rewarding, the kids felt so rewarded for their perseverance and we had a hard time getting the kids to leave, but it took a lot of patience, be warned 🙂
At the end of the game, the Fish Ninjas put their haul back in the kiddie pool, and get to pick a bag of two goldfish each, to bring home (a.k.a. Potential Unexpected Pet Hazard)
Family selfie (That is Rockstar’s “Happy Face” for pictures :D)
Epilogue:
Well of course we have to validate the Fish Ninja effort 🙂 So we went to the supermarket for goldfish supplies… Naturally the fish also came with 😀
“This could be your cousin…” Uh…
Hamster Ninja happily washing rocks for the “goldfish bowl”
One of em has “white spot”, the fungal condition – fair warning, if you were thinking to put them in an existing tank you may want to look them over carefully), so I managed the kids expectations about how long these were going to live…
Next holiday we went back, to this haul:
(They pretty much empty the paddling pool, put everyone back in after, and then catch them all over again, with the exception of Hamster Ninja also offering her goldfish-catching services to various random other little kids)
So now we have 7. One died inexplicably from the first batch, but it wasn’t the one with the fungal condition; and one of HN’s fish has just one eye (which she thinks makes it special, and so she has named it One Eye) as she fusses over the tanks…
…prompting the “15 year old puppy” to demand more attention…
Ya really happy they have such petting zoo in HK. What a great idea.