Trip to Kansas City Zoo

Every month, the International Student Services (ISS) at KU will organize a trip for international students to explore and visit Kansas City. The ISS even named it as "The KC Trip Series".

 

As for this Fall Break, ISS decided to bring the international students to the Kansas City Zoo! It is home to more than 1,300 animals and has been voted one of America's best zoos in the year 2008. The trip was something definitely worth going for! And it didn't even cost us a fortune, we only had to pay $8 for the bus trip. Most of the MSA members certainly tagged along for this KC Trip Series!

 

Everyone had gathered in front of the Kansas Union and lined up to get inside the school buses. Little did we know that the two buses were already full. So what do we get? Well, we Malaysian students, ALL TOGETHER got to ride the KU van , we felt like special VVIP guests for a moment there! :-D The van had just enough seats to fit all of us in, lucky us!

 

Tiffany from the Applied English Center was our chauffeur for the day and the person handling all the students for this trip. She was surprised too when she found out that everyone in the van was from the same country. We made her guess and her first guess was Indonesia. Close enough haha. We had a good one-hour drive to Kansas City.

 

As we reached the entrance of the Kansas City Zoo, everyone was so hyped up and ready to go! Tiffany gave a short brief introduction for the day and instructions to where we will gather again after the zoo closes. After that, we were off on our own :-D

 



 

As we walked into the front entry plaza of the Zoo, we all went to the Polar Bear Plunge! This zoo has been famously known for their two polar bears, so we didn't want to miss it! At first the polar bears were only chilling around but as people started to gather around the glass windows, one of the polar bears came up to the glass and plunged backwards to entertain the crowd. It was pretty amazing! It wasn't called Polar Bear Plunge for nothing ;-) We also went to the Penguin Plaza afterwards and came just in time for their feeding session.

 

 

Initially we were all together as a group but then some of us took longer time to immerse in the beauty of mother nature and some of us only took a glimpse of the animals and walked on, haha. Eventually, the group became two separate ones.

 

I am unsure what happened with the other group but here are some pictures from our walk around the zoo :-) We first headed to the Africa-part of the zoo, which was divided into subparts: Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and The Congolese Rainforest. You could tell from the pictures that the zoo was really big and they actually made it look like an actual African-environment. Not for a moment did we actually felt like walking on the pavements of a zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

We got to see the African Elephants, the Chilean Flamingos, the cheetahs, the Southern Ground-Hornbills, the Bateleur Eagles, the Red Ruffed Lemurs, the African Lion, the Meerkat, the Masai Giraffes, the Grant's Zebras, and the Western Lowland Gorilla. I mean there were many more animals but these were definitely the highlights. We then continued on to the Australia-part of the zoo, where we saw the Red Kangaroos, the Bennett's Wallaby, the Matschie's Tree Kangaroo, the Spotted Python, the Green Tree Pythons and the Dromedary Camels. One of the locals was kind enough to help us take a picture of the group! :-)

 



We then continued on to the Tiger Trail-part of the zoo, where we encountered the Francois Langur, the Bali Mynah, the Tufted Deer, the Red Panda and the Sumatran Tiger of course! The main attraction of this whole Tiger Trail. We later went to the KidZone part to pet the Llama, the Fallow Deer, the Pygmy Goats and the Donkeys.

 

 

 

Not soon after that were we united with the other group :-D It was nice to be a big group again and wandering around the zoo together. We visited the Great Ape House together where they just moved in Sumatran Orangutans to the zoo. Somehow we did feel like taken aback to Malaysia for a second there when we saw the Orangutans. Eventually time was ticking and it was almost 5.00 P.M., the zoo's closing time. Some decided to walk back but there were some who choose to take the African Sky Safari (including myself)! So here are some of the pictures from up above the modified ski lift.

 

Our day soon came to an end and it was time to go home. You could say that everyone was dead beat when we got to the van and everyone just fell asleep through the whole journey back. It was a great day together and a great start to this year's Fall Break! There you have it, a picture of the MASA family :-)