We spent a day at the Maryland Zoo for a fun, low-stakes activity.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

Today’s blog post comes from a side quest I went on with my sister. When I was a kid I went to the Maryland Zoo on field trips, but when I think about it, the last time I was able to go to the zoo was a fourth grade field trip. I have literally never been ever since, and it’s kind of expensive to go on a random weekend (it is $33 an adult).

Most people I know with kids have a membership because it’s just cheaper to do that, but basically we ended up here on this day because someone gave us tickets. The parking is free around the zoo, and they did not check bags for food, so I feel like with a membership this could be a really cheap activity—under the presumption that you go often.

Let’s get into our zoo trip!

The Maryland Zoo is full of animals that were rescued from bad conditions.

We arrived at the Maryland Zoo around 10:30 AM on a Sunday, not long after opening, and were able to park in the second closest lot (penguin) without any problems. The zoo itself wasn’t crowded at all, and we were able to see all of the animals that were out without any crowds. Only the penguin feeding time had a small crowd of people.

We began in the section that hosts the red panda, but because it was hot on that day, the red pandas were hiding inside and enjoying the air conditioning. I don’t blame them for that! There is quite a bit of shade throughout the zoo, so I feel like we (and the animals) had places to hide from the sun.

Our first major stop was the penguin feeding time, and from there we looped around the zoo by hitting up the Northern Passage, then the Africa section, and then the final meadowlands. Meadowlands felt like the most disappointing to me and empty, but that seemed to be a theme throughout the park sometimes.

With a lot of the bigger animals, there are only one or two. That’s the case with the lion, the bears (who are sisters), and bald eagle. There are quite a few giraffes in their section, and I appreciated how you could get up pretty close to them. For an additional fee you can also feed the giraffes, but we skipped that (and the $7 Diet Cokes).

This is a great place to spend time in the moment, draw, or simply exist within.

We finished the zoo in about two hours and didn’t feel like we missed much. Considering this was the first time back in about twenty years for me, I was surprised at how much smaller I remembered the zoo, as well as how much it changed in terms of animal demographics. I still remember the polar bears at the zoo when I was a kid, although I think it’s cool that their enclosure is now for the rescued bears.

I liked the zoo for the fact that it was something nice to do and low cost. I don’t know if I would go back if I had to pay full price for a ticket, and my sister agreed with me after we finished. Like it was very fun to go to and see the animals, but it wasn’t incredible. Maybe we’re corrupted, too, because we’ve been to the San Diego Zoo.

If you have kids, though, then a membership is definitely worth it. You could take your time and spend days dedicated to certain sections and learning about the animals, and I felt like most people wandering around the zoo were families with smal kids.

Oasis Uzbek Kabob House is also a solid place to eat at nearby!

Once we finished at the zoo, we went to my birthday dinner. Turns out Pikesville is only a hop and a skip away from the zoo, and this year I wanted to eat at one of my go-to restaurants for Uzbek food: Oasis!

Or, well, I didn’t decide that originally. I wanted to go to Silk Road Bistro but they were closed for a private event that day. Oasis is only five minutes down the street, but I recommend getting some of their fresh, warm Uzbek-style bread and lagman. The lagman there is absolutely delicious, and I also enjoy the pumpkin manti.

The service can be hit or miss though depending on who’s working that day. The guy we had was fine, but then he disappeared and we had to flag multiple people down to get our carryout order and check once we finished eating.

That’s how we spent this day! I had a lot of fun, and it was the perfect Sunday side quest.

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