animals | Nyan Thomas L's Blog

Dogs

As you may know, Nyan has never been too fond of dogs. He’s long had a healthy skepticism of them, a skepticism that often has spilled over into outright fear. It hasn’t helped that, living in a high-rise in one of the world’s most densely populated cities, he doesn’t have a lot of chances to have long interactions with the furry fellows.

Happily, that changed in September when visiting Phil, Jill and their three boys in Chicago. They have a lovely little rescue dog named Pearl, who’s quite mellow and sweet. Nyan has met Pearl before but never really clicked, but this trip, something came together in his head and before we knew it, Nyan was all over the friendly pooch.

Here he is, walking and cuddling Pearl like they had always been best pals:

Cuddling his new pal:

It wasn’t just Pearl though. He brought his new-found love of canines back with us when we returned to Iowa City. Check him out here with Aunt Maggie’s pooch:

And then there was the Beast, a.k.a. Lily, one of the sweetest dogs you’ll ever meet. She’s Cousin Mia’s pooch, and Nyan loved Beast too.

Okay, so it took a minute. But once they warmed up to each other, it was all love.

Happy to report that he’s still into dogs now that we’re back in Singapore. No fear of them at all. Such a nice change. He’s even mentioned, a time or two, getting a dog himself. Uh, we quickly change the topic. Dude, we live in a not-huge apartment on the 20th floor – not so great for a dog.

Still, pleased as hell that he’s finally into dogs. Our boy is coming along nicely.

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Posted by Chris L. on October 24, 2016 in Uncategorized

Tags: animals

A Sunny Day in Santa Cruz

20 Jul

On our mini-holiday in Northern California last month, we spent one day driving south along the shore on Highway 1. We’d intended to get down to Big Sur, but it was lunchtime before we even made it to Santa Cruz, and the geography was clear: making it to Big Sur was going to mean pushing it really hard and not having much time to relax and enjoy ourselves.

So we decided to scrap Big Sur and spend a little time in Santa Cruz, including a leisurely lunch on the boardwalk and just wandering around in the brilliant sunshine. It’s a lovely coastal town, and the scenery is only enhanced by the weird way the fog forms a sort of wall just inland.

The best part, maybe, was the large flock (school? group?) of sea lions (or seals? not sure of the biological differences here, to be honest…) hanging out on a little shelf under the boardwalk.

Very cool. Loved the sounds they make too. And Nyan was totally transfixed too:

So no, we didn’t make it to Big Sur in the end. Didn’t even make it down to Monterey. No complaints at all though.

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Posted by Chris L. on July 20, 2015 in Uncategorized

Tags: animals, travel

Two Days at Jurong Bird Park

05 Jun

A few months ago, Nyan spent a couple of Sunday afternoons with his pals at Jurong Bird Park. It’s basically a zoo that’s all about birds. It’s run by the same people who run the Singapore Zoo, and it’s pretty much just as high-quality as the zoo. Lots and lots to see and do.

Here’s Nyan, Kyle and Ava (Kyle’s cousin), holding hands on their way in to the park.

Random photos of the kids at the park:

One of the features is a bird show at an amphitheater, featuring birds flying through hoops, and a parrot singing Happy Birthday, and more.

And check out this random bird at our lunch site. That’s the bird whistling and saying Hi in a female voice. Pretty cool.

It’s a beautiful park, set in the hills and dense jungle of western Singapore, and there’s even a waterfall inside one of the exhibits, which is huge and fenced-in so all the birds can fly around but not fly away.

Here are the kids, running through the jungle away from the ‘monster’ (who we’re pretty sure was the videographer, a.k.a. Daddy. Hmm):

What’s a bird park without penguins? Here are Nyan and Kyle checking them out, and Daddy trying to keep them from stepping where they weren’t supposed to and falling off the ledge. The bit at the end of this video, where things go a little haywire, is when Kyle suddenly jumped into Daddy’s arms. Then Nyan quickly followed suit.

Besides birds and penguins and monsters, Jurong Bird Park has snacks…

…and coin-operated toys…

And maybe best of all: it has a pretty huge water play area, complete with slides, fountains, and a full playground.

Nyan is not too convinced about the water slide at first, but once he makes it down, he sure is proud of himself:

And finally, we saved arguably the best for last. Jurong Bird Park also has a few turtles, for whatever reason, just slowly strolling along inside one of the exhibits. Our hero decided to try to pet one. Brave little guy!

The bird park was definitely a fun couple of afternoons, and definitely highly recommended. We’ll be back.

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Posted by Chris L. on June 5, 2015 in Uncategorized

Tags: animals, Singapore

Nyan Thomas Feeds a Giraffe

14 Nov

Nyan took Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa to the Singapore Zoo last week. We happened to get to the giraffe enclosure right at feeding time – and for a few dollars, they handed us some carrots and let us feed the critter. Nyan was… well, he was less than impressed. And who can blame him, really – I mean, take a look at that long, black, snake-like tongue. Kinda creepy to a three-year-old.

Bonus: later, we came across a strange hairy monkey – seriously, dude was like a giant mustache that was swinging thru the trees – who jumped onto a fence post and checked us out. Nyan was still a little leery, but less so, and even managed to give a wave to the little fella.

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Posted by Chris L. on November 14, 2014 in Photos

Tags: animals, outdoors, Singapore

River Safari

01 Oct

Back in late August, Nyan’s school took all the kids on a field trip to a place called River Safari. It’s next door to, and related to, but somehow separate from, the wonderful Singapore Zoo that we visited back in May, when we’d been on this little island for all of about three days, River Safari is kind of an aquarium: there’s a long path that takes you past various exhibits showing the marine life in the world’s biggest rivers (Nile, Amazon, Mississippi, a few in China, etc.). And there’s also a couple of giant pandas. (No, pandas don’t live in the world’s biggest rivers, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what the connection between rivers and pandas might be. But hey, it’s giant pandas! So who really cares if they don’t really belong here?) Overall it’s a pretty cool place, not as sprawling or comprehensive as the zoo next door but definitely worth a visit.

The younger kids had to be accompanied on the field trip by an adult, so Daddy ~~had to~~ got to come along. Daddy was waiting in the lobby of the school’s building when all the kids marched out; here’s a video he took before Nyan realized Daddy was there:

And here’s the bus we took, and Nyan on said bus:

It was about a half hour drive to River Safari, and then we had to wait around a bit as tickets were picked up and distributed. The kids entertained themselves by playing around with various statues and generally exploring things.

The little boy in the photo where Nyan is investgating the storm water grate is his pal Kyle, seen in these photos and in the video with Kyle’s cousin Eva:

As we mentioned, River Safari is all about marine life, including fish, crocodiles, manta rays, birds and more.

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And of course, there are two pandas. Though we only saw one (and you may seen these pictures and video in an earlier post):

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There was a lot of walking and running all over the site:

So much so that, on the bus ride back, Nyan zonked out, fast asleep. (Of course, Nyan being Nyan, he spent the first 25 minutes of the half-hour ride looking out the window, asking what everything was, trying to get out of his seat belt to run around, etc., and then conked out as the bus was almost back to the school. Great timing, kid!) But no worries – it was a great day filled with friends, fish and pandas (huh?).

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Posted by Chris L. on October 1, 2014 in Photos, Video

Tags: animals, friends, school, Singapore

Nyan Thomas and the Giant Panda

27 Aug

Nyan had his first-ever field trip today, a school visit to a place called River Safari, right next to the Singapore Zoo. It’s mostly an aquarium of sorts, with displays showing marine life that lives in the world’s biggest rivers. Pretty interesting. Oddly enough, a couple years back they added a pair of giant panda — what do pandas have to do with the world’s greatest rivers? I can’t quite say. But whatever: who doesn’t love a panda? Nyan certainly loves pandas. (So does Daddy, truth be told.)

We’ll have more on the trip overall in a later post. But for now, some photos and a nice little video of our hero and his pal the panda.

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Posted by Chris L. on August 27, 2014 in Photos, Video

Tags: animals, school, Singapore

The Singapore Zoo

22 Jun

Nyan loves animals – what kid doesn’t, of course – and we’d read that Singapore has one of the world’s best zoos. So last month, a few days after we arrived here, Daddy and Nyan spent a day at the zoo. We weren’t disappointed.

It rained heavily that morning, but the skies were clearing when we arrived at the zoo, shortly after it opened at 10am. The rain meant no crowds, which meant we had the animals mostly to ourselves. We started out at the polar bear exhibit, where Nyan was wowed as he watched the bear dive under the water and eat fish. (He still talks about that today, more than a month after our visit.)

A small sampling of some of the other animals we saw: zebras, giraffes, crocodiles, lions, birds, monkeys, kangaroos. And a cheetah.

And pygmy hippos.

And organutans.

And turtles and fish.

Monkeys too.

The highlight, perhaps, was the elephant show. All morning long, Daddy had been promising that we’d make it to the elephant show, which somehow in Nyan’s mind became ‘We’re gonna see the elephants dancing!” Well, they didn’t actually dance, but they did put on a nice show for us.

Video from the show:

He looks less than enthused, but that’s just ’cause he was paying close attention. And perhaps because the midday heat, the humidity, the jetlag and the hours of running around were all catching up to him: after the elephant show, we made our way to the exit, and he fell asleep in the car within a few minutes of driving off.

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Posted by Chris L. on June 22, 2014 in Photos, Video

Tags: animals, Singapore

Adam’s Birthday Party

19 Nov

A few weeks back, Nyan’s pal Adam had his own second birthday, and threw himself a party at a farm-like place south of London.

There were tractors!

And of course pigs, among other animals.

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Plus puddles and plenty of room to run around:

Lots of indoor play too, including more tractors.

And lots of snacking with the birthday boy, too:

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Posted by Chris L. on November 19, 2013 in Photos, Video

Tags: animals, outdoors

A Visit to the Farm

17 Aug

A couple weekends ago, Nyan took Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa to a place called Mudchute Park and Farm. It’s a pretty good sized area just south of Canary Wharf — that is to say, pretty much in the heart of London — that’s got acres and acres of forest, hills, and grazing land for a bunch of animals. Nyan had been to a farm or two in his day, but he’s getting more comfortable around the animals. Not entirely so, but getting there.

Here he is, feeding the goats with Daddy. Note that Nyan won’t hold the grass himself, but rather guides Daddy’s hand Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Chris L. on August 17, 2013 in Photos, Video

Tags: animals, london, outdoors

Down on the Farm (Pictures and Videos)

22 Apr

Last Sunday, the sun came out and the temperature jumped up to about 60 degrees, and nearly everyone on this little island emerged from their homes, blinking in the brightness like baby moles, and headed outside for the afternoon. We were no different. Our initial plans for a trip to the London zoo got derailed due to practicalities like naptime and whatnot, so instead we decided Nyan would get in touch with his Iowan roots and headed half an hour north of London, to a place called Lea Valley Park Farms.

It’s tucked into a lovely little valley, and it’s apparently a working farm of some sort, but they have quite a spread that’s open to visitors, with trails, a cafe or two, several areas of games and activities, and animals. Lots of animals. We saw pigs, sheep, goats, donkeys, llamas, rabbits, turkeys, tortoises, chickens, cows, meerkats, guinea pigs, ponies, even an entire sled’s worth of Siberian huskies. Our boy was enthralled by some of the animals, a little freaked out by others (goats, of course, stink to high heaven, and Nyan was not impressed). Here’s a bunch of photos of the lad – expertly shot by Mommy, who was manning the camera (click on any picture to make it bigger and start a nice slideshow):