Saturday, January 29, 2005

safari park Like many other cities in China, Shanghai has a safari park. Bus tours are available, but the Chinese did not think it was necessarry to put bars on the windows to avoid tigers from eating human beings for lunch. Actually that [OE]s not completely true, because there is one iron bar in the middle of the window. That does not help much, though, as the space below the bar is more than enough to let a tiger go true. This Wednesday the park bus was doing its regular tour. Tourist can buy live chicken and feed these through the window to the animals. After the tigers ate the chicken, one of them decided that he was still hungry and wanted some more. So it started to tear off the rubber strips around the window until the whole window fell onto the ground. A second tiger noticed the opportunity for an extra lunch and came to help. Tourists started screaming, and at that point the bus driver hit the gas to get away from the tigers as soon as possible. That worked out, and nobody got hurt. The reaction from the safari park: [base "]One of the tourists had some pork with him that the tigers might have smelled, that[base ']s why they attacked. It is not allowed to bring in outside food to the safari park, so we are not liable for the accident[per thou]. I would not be surprised if the buses keep on riding their daily rounds without any modifications to the windows or window bars. 10:29:55 PM    comment []