Southeast Botanical Garden or "Ann feeds the world's largest rodent"- November 2

We had terrible rainy weather for Halloween and the day after.  We saw a bit of sunshine on Saturday so Bill and I grabbed the chance to go walking...boy did we go walking.
Bill has been wanting to go to the buffet lunch at Southeast Botanical Gardens.  The gradens have been closed for 2 years (right after we got here) for upgrades.  
So the bit of sunshine was a great motivator.  We thought we would grab lunch and go for a walk around the gardens.
It was hot, about 85 and super steamy.  The water from the previous rain was just steaming.
Well, take a look at my hair throughout.  Between the the steam and my baseball hat hair, I was not a very good hair model.  But I had a great day!
I got to feed the largest rodent on the earth...

Here is my first (of 3..maybe 4) plates.

We were lucky to get a seat by the window.  The view was beautiful.

At this station, you cook pork strips and vegetables in broth. 

I chose, green tea ice cream, melon sorbet, and vanilla.  I never had melon sorbet before.  It was so refreshing and light.  The vanilla ice cream goes right into my coffee.  I am not much of an ice cream eater. But when I do, it is coffee ice cream.  At buffets, I just get a bowl of ice cream and pour a little coffee on it.  So good!

OK, then I had another tray of desserts for fun.  I am not much of a dessert eater.  I am a salt eater, we are different.  I would much rather have a bag of BBQ potato chips and sour cream than any cake, any day.  But buffets are fun to take a bite of everything.  Bill and I shared this tray.
Sesame ball in the upper right slot, bean paste and sesame paste in the bottom slots.  They love "jelly" here, that is the orange looking thing above the bean paste.  It is great in the summer because it is cool.
I liked the pastes, neat flavors.

The winner for us was the sesame balls.  They were filled with bean pastes.  The balls were rice paste. Great texture.  As you can see, we went back for seconds.

 We went for long walk around the park for about 2 hours after lunch.  Just kept circling.

Butterfly trees

Kids love to climb on the cow sculptures.  No idea why they are being led by a cow on a surfboard wearing glasses.  Who wears glasses when they surf?

Bill likes to take pictures of flowers for his mother...

Then we saw the goats, and you can feed them.
You may remember from earlier posts, Bill is not an animal lover.  So he just takes pictures.  They were so cute.

After I ran out of food and started out the pen, one of the goats got mad at me and rammed me in the butt.  With his horn.

More flowers for Bill's mom...

We had to wait an hour before the spider monkey and capybara cages open for feeding and playing.  So we kept walking and watching the clock.  The spider monkeys were co cute.  I couldn't wait to feed them.

The capybaras were hideously cute.  They are the largest rodent in the earth.

See how they have webbed feet.  And their "fur" was like a porcupine.  Really stiff.

They kind of remind me of the "Rus" "rodents of unusual size" animal from the movie, "The Princess Bride"….

We left the park after walking for over 2 hours.  On the way home we saw Kirishi Dam and stopped by for pictures and a walk...That is part 2.  Good time, we will come back