Have Twins, Will Travel

And this is what it looked like this afternoon. Amazing!

 

We spent the day getting settled in our new abode. We almost didn’t need or want to go out, since the grounds of our new place are spacious and beautiful. The twins were content to run around outside and explore the gorgeous gardens.

Eventually, we ventured out to the Bat Jungle, a small museum and bat habitat. This was another place that was highly recommended, and I have to admit that it was pretty interesting – for older kids and adults – but not so much for toddlers.

We learned plenty of fun bat facts:

• There are over 1000 species of bats.
• They range in size from the tiny bumble bee bat (the world’s smallest mammal) to the giant Malayan fruit bat, with a 5-foot wingspan.
• Many plants depend on fruit bats to distribute their seeds.
• Bats are not blind. They have excellent vision and smell, in addition to their amazing echolocation skills.
• The mammal that bats resemble most closely is the monkey.

They did enjoy the giant fiberglass ears, which amplified sounds to demonstrate how bats hear. That was so interesting, they thought they should demonstrate to the entire tour group by singing the ABCs into the microphone. Nice.

Other than that, the tour involved a bit too much talking for my two-year-olds’ tastes.

When we finally were allowed to enter the bat habitat, it was, well, dark. To be fair, the habitat is pretty big, with almost 100 bats flying around in there. The tour guide was very patient and precise about spotlighting different species of bats, especially the individuals that were eating or otherwise active. The bat noises were amplified so we could actually hear them communicating and echolocating, so that was very cool. But the twins did not last too long in there either.

Oh well, I think we should try again in five years.