Will it be a March baby???

To keep ourselves occupied while waiting for the baby (almost a week past the due date) I decided I would take Austin on the train. We found (on the map) what appeared to be a Zoological, Botanical garden & Aquarium just a short walk from the train station that we'll exit, being two stations down from where we got on. As is the custom in crowded portions of Manila, we transferred all the contents of our back pockets to the front, wore our backpack on the front, bought our tickets and excitedly boarded the train. Austin enjoyed looking out the window and watching as we hurriedly passed up cars and buses on the road below. At our stop we were able to directly enter a small mall (for the airconditioning, not the shopping) and weave our way through shops towards the exit on the street. After a walk of 10 minutes we reached our destination, only to find that the zoo is now a squatters village. Fortunately there was a nice man at the Jeepney stop who told us of a Wildlife center just up the street, which we quickly found and bought our tickets, P8.00 Adults and P5.00 Children, a total of about 28 cents US.

We saw a Philippine Eagle (the national bird), a macaw, a Brahminy kite, a pea fowl, monkeys, and a VERY large cloud rat (the size of three Chiuaua's). Austin got to swing on a mangrove swamp tree vine too.

It quickly became evident that this place is not frequented by many expatriates as we were stared at more than usual, maybe we should have been in a cage ourselves. All in all it was a great time.