On saturday I visited the Rotterdam Zoo (aka Diergaarde Blijdorp) with Sarah who was visiting from Amsterdam. The zoo is one of the oldest in Rotterdam, having been built in 1857. The zoo was destroyed in the German bombing of Rotterdam, but was rebuilt in a new location, and opened to the public on December 7, 1940. The Zoo is quite large and has many interesting animals to see. There are animals from all over the world, and under the ocean. One of the most well known residents of the Rotterdam Zoo is Bokito, a male gorilla, who made headlines around the world when he escaped from his enclosure in 2007 and injured four people before he was tranquilized. We saw him during our visit, fortunately inside his enclosure. I read on Wikipedia, that apparently the word 'Bokitoproof' meaning "durable enough to resist the actions of an enraged gorilla", and therefore "durable enough to resist the actions of a non-specific extreme situation", was voted the Dutch language word of year for 2007. Here is the picture I took of Bokito:
It's hard to tell in the picture, but his size is really quite impressive. I can only imagine what those people must have felt, seeing him coming at them... Here are some more pictures from the Zoo:
Overall, it was a very nice day, especially since the weather turned out to be much better than expected. I definitely recommend visiting!
3 comments:
Nice! When you find yourself in my hometown Kristiansand in Norway you should visit the Zoo there =)
Boyfriend told me about the word 'Bokitoproof' as well when I got home. Funny how single (but important) incidents like that can enter new words into every day language. They seemed to have learned from their mistake though. Didn't look like it'd be easy for him to escape now. And for the tiger I dare say it would be impossible to.
Ah yes, the Kristiansand zoo. I've never been there (nor to Kristiansand at all for that matter), but I am still traumatized from having to sing the 'Julius song' in a choir I was member of, around age 13 or so. ;) I'm sure the zoo is nice though!
Oh my god, yes the Julius song. How to forget that :-p
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