Well, a month late, but we finally got out the zoo and I was impressed. Not quite as clean and well-designed as the zoos we’ve visited recently in Denver and Portland, OR, but still very good. The best things about the Taipei zoo are that:
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The MRT stop is right there. Although we drove, next time we’ll take the MRT as it looks so convenient.
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Incredibly cheap. Just NT$60 for adults and children over 12; NT$30 for kids age 6-12; and free for kids under 6 (which is why the place is swarming with babies and strollers).
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Lots of good exhibits, such as the tropical rain forest area, with a walkway through nice vegetation, past monkeys, orangutangs, etc.; the giraffes, zebras and elephants were also very nice.
The penguin exhibit was a little small and disappointing compared to others I’ve seen, but it was still ok I guess, and some exhibits didn’t seem quite green and natural enough, but overall I don’t recall seeing any exhibit that I thought was truly barbaric, as I thought I might.
We went on Saturday and it was very crowded. It would definitely be better during the week. Incidentally, if you’re really cheap they apparently let guests in for free after 4 pm (it closes at 5), but for god sake it’s only NT$60.
There’s lots of construction going on, so in the future it will apparently be even better. But, even in its present state, it was a very good experience and our girl now has a much better understanding of important vocabulary words such as monkey, elephant and giraffe.
Finally, if you drive there and aren’t too exhausted afterwards, it’s a very short drive from the zoo to a famous tofu street that I mentioned in another thread a while ago, with lots of good food (if you like stinky tofu and the like) and nice gift stores.
[forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … ofu#344355](Famous Stinky Tofu Street near Taipei
We went to both. It was a long day but a very good one.