I'm finally back to finish off the story.  The last couple of days were just so busy that there was no time to keep up with the blog.  So now let's go back in time to Friday, our last day of field trips.

We began the day with a trip to the Taipei City Zoo, where we were given a guided tour by the director of the conservation and wildlife rescue center sectors of the zoo.  We were given a three hour tour which mainly focused on the section of the zoo with Taiwan's native and endemic species, such as the wild boar.  We also got to see the koalas and pandas.

The most important part of our tour was to the Wildlife Rescue Center, which is not open to the public.  This is where we spent most of our time, seeing the tortoises, tigers, orangutans, monkeys, and other reptiles.  Unfortunately, I cannot post any of my pictures from the rescue center because it is behind closed doors. It was really cool because we got to get in the enclosure with the tortoises, pet, and feed them.  Some of them were gigantic, around five feet in diameter!  We also got to pet a boa constrictor and a few people even held it.

After the zoo tour we had some free time (we were supposed to have the entire afternoon off, but the schedule changed so that we had to go to a tour at the NTU vet hospital at 3:30), so a group of us went to eat lunch at the Hello Kitty restaurant.  We got there at 12:30, and they told us that they could get us a table at 1:30 so we decided to go ahead and wait even though it would be cutting it close.  While we were waiting, we realized the table we were waiting for was one we could see from the waiting area.  There were three moms and something like six kids sitting there.  They were taking about a million pictures and just sitting around and talking a lot.  1:30 came and went and they were still sitting there.  We were getting frustrated at them because we had a tight schedule and it was already later than promised.  The kids were running around like crazy too and broke a glass.  Even the staff was getting annoyed by them.  By the time they finally left it was 2:00.

We called Jack to let him know that we would probably be late to the vet hospital and placed our orders.  The meal started off pretty tense, but courses started coming and we relaxed and started to enjoy it.  At the Hello Kitty restaurant all of the food is either shaped like Hello Kitty or has Hello Kitty on the dish.  The crazies part to me is that no matter what you order, you get soup, salad, a roll, an appetizer, your main course, and a custard desert.  Everything was super cute and delicious, and I was really glad that we had stayed.

Clockwise starting from the guy: Tracy, Corinne, Stephanie, Jenny, Carolina, Ivy, me

What was amazing to me was how fast the food came after we ordered.  Even though we got started late, we took a cab to the vet hospital and were only ten minutes late.  That was a miracle in my opinion.  And we did better than about five other people that didn't even bother to show up that afternoon. Not that I blame them too much since the vet hospital wasn't in the original schedule anyway.

Going into the vet hospital I didn't have high expectations because I thought that since I've already seen two vet schools that it wouldn't be very interesting. Despite this expectation, I was pleasantly surprised.  The guide we had spoke English very well and he was an engaging speaker.  After a brief presentation about the vet program (which is really different from the U.S. system because their vet school is only a five year undergrad program before the board exam for licensing) we got to take a tour.  We saw the MRI and CAT scan machines, the surgery prep room, the holding room for patients exiting surgery, the pathology lab/space for the grad students, and a couple of exam rooms.

When all of our official business for the day was finished, Flora and Rebecca took Stephanie, Corinne, Jenny and me to ChiaTe, which is the best pastry shop for pineapple cake in Taipei.  Everyone bought some, and I bought a box of the original pineapple flavor to bring home with me.