At Coling, traditionally one day is reserved for an excursion to see
\nthe sites in the area. I think this is a nice idea. I’m fairly bad
\nat planning sightseeing when I’m on my own, so it is nice to have a
\nlarge group to go with. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The large ACL\/COLING group met up in Darling harbor and took a boat
\n(The Captain Cook III) to Topanga Zoo (that name might not be
\ncorrect.) The boat ride over was nice, a short 20 minute trip. I
\nspent my time with Dekai Wu, Pascale Fung, their child Belen, and
\nKevin Knight. Belen was extremely cute. There was a very nice
\npicture of her, when Dekai was holding her up to the window as we
\npassed by the Sydney Opera house. A rainbow was ending on the Opera
\nHouse resulting in a very cute picture. <\/p>\n
The main things that I wanted to do were to take pictures
\nof Kangaroos and Koalas. We had about an hour and a half there, with
\na buffet style breakfast. I went out pretty much on my own to find
\nthe Kangaroos. There was a “Kangaroo Encounter” that I walked
\nthrough, and saw many Wallabys, which are a kind of smaller Kangaroo I
\nthink. They are very slow and awkward looking crawling on four legs
\nwith their tail dragging around, but once they start to hop, they move
\nfast. It is really impressive. <\/p>\n
After the Kangaroos, I went to the buffet breakfast and had two large
\nglasses of orange juice. Afterwards I set out to find the Koalas. On
\nthe way I bumped into some Giraffes. They are huge. Amazingly huge.
\nVery, very tall. I also went past some monkeys, and a Rhino. The
\nRhino was huge. <\/p>\n
\nwere just up in the tree sleeping. All of them. They looked super
\ncute though. <\/p>\n
\nimpressed with the Kodomo dragon. It was really intimidating looking,
\nand was very active moving around. I made my way back to the exit
\nand just made the bus back to the boat. <\/p>\n