Saturday, August 22, 2015

Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

We moved to Santiago, Chile and although we haven’t done *anything* remotely touristy yet (unless you count flapping your hands, pointing, sighing & sheepishly smiling to bridge the language barrier with an exclusive non-english speaking population we’re dealing with here), here are few things that WOW-ed me from a mother of a 3 year old point of view! (i.e. things *other* than the majestic snow capped Andies that you can see every time you look up, from almost anywhere in the city!) 



The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago



Children’s Restroom

The first and foremost mention I’ll make is about children’s restrooms! Yes! thats correct! There’s one for breastfeeding, one for women, one for men AND one for children!

i.e. all “equipment” is at their height and size. All I had to do is hang around wait for him while he did everything on his own. He locked the door behind him while he did his thing, then came out, washed hands with soap, wiped them with tissues and used the hand dryer. ALL BY HIMSELF. Like at home! 

These children toilets were all over Parque Arauco Mall, but isn’t this how it should be everywhere? Aren’t children people? don’t they deserve dignity and independence? 


The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago




Children’s Creche

He hasn’t begun school yet (Seriously!! he has had a looong... never ending summer + monsoon + winter vacation in the past 4 months!)  and unlike back home, there aren’t any grandparents to chill out with, so the poor fella’s tagged along wherever we go! We had to go looking for houses, buy jackets for the cold weather, figure out groceries so we could start cooking (and stop feasting at Burger King!). So a creche *at* the mall is God sent! At Mall Apumanque its only for an hour a day, but its free! Its a secured area (so kids can’t just run off!) and has some toys and crayons to chill out with. 

You must be thinking I must’ve shopped by ass off, but all I did the first time was change some money and sit and have ice cream! (cuz he isn’t allowed any owing to his sensitivity to cold food!)


The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

Children’s Strollers

They’re available too! At malls, for free! All you have to deposit is your ID and off you go with a good looking functional stroller! We haven’t used a stroller since he was 10 months old, and although this dude of ours is a runner, he just *dislikes* walking around in a mall! Strap him in a stroller and its this cool new thing that he’s fascinated with. At least worked the two times I tried out! 

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago


Children’s Car Seat

My kid rode in cars for 3.5 years of his life without car seats! It isn’t compulsory in Indonesia or India and we never bothered (gasp!). Even on highways we simply strapped on the adult seat belt on him in the backseat (gasp! gasp!). But in Chile we asked for a car seat along with the rented car. The first time he howled and cried like a bucket of tears ….no!! I don’t want to sit in it! it pains! (even before he got into it!). But that lasted 5 minutes. Our child is finally buckled safely!  

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago


Children’s Park

There’s this super huge one named Parque Aroucuno, and its. seriously. huge. I *hated* going to parks in Pune and would beg my kid to go out with my maid or his grandparents for *at least 10 minutes*. The equipment was rusty, the ground was muddy and the crowd rowdy. Rusty, muddy, rowdy. yuck yuck yuck. I would bury myself in a gossip magazine so I don’t look at the rusty muddy & rowdy. And beg my neighbours with children to accompany me so I had some company to crib about the rusty muddy rowdy.

But here it’s beautiful! It even has an aviary. 


The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

Chilean National Zoo

When I was contemplating having a child, it never occurred to me that it entailed visiting a zoo - first thing- when you visited a new place. We’ve seen *many* zoos by now. But this one was different since I had never seen real life Red pandas, penguins, flamingoes, lamas and sea lions before! So I guess I was a little bit more excited than my 3.5 y.o.!

The Chilean National Zoo is at the foot of San Cristóbel hill, so perhaps not more than 30 minutes from anywhere in the city. We went on a weekend, so it was packed with little kids and strollers! The entry ticket is a bit steep 3,000 Chilean Pesos ($4.3) per adult/ 1,500 ($2.17) per child and an extra 4,000 pesos ($5.8) for parking your car. Thats $17 for the 3 of us (compared to just $1 in  India or Indonesia!) But I guess the penguins were was worth it! 

Its a nice place to wander around for an hour or two. Breezy, being on the hill & all. What I esp liked was they weren’t fussy about taking food or plastic inside (as they are in india) so you can snack all you want! They are toilets near the entrance/ exit and plenty of garbage bins around. 

We saw the largest ever Giraffes along with Tigers, Lions, Emus too!

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago

The Practical Mom: Child friendly Chile: Restrooms, Creches, Parks & Zoos in Santiago


P.S. All these pictures (except the park ones) were taken by my camera phone! Didn't really have any idea about the quality until I transferred to my laptop for this post!

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4 comments:

  1. How exciting to explore a new city, but how scary for a mom of a youngster. How great that you're finding so many awesome things for him - and you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an awesome post to share!! Thanks for sharing on our Bowdabra Saturday Crafty Showcase!!

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  3. It looks absolutely fabulous! Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the #pinitparty

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  4. Wow, that is so wonderful that they had so many things made special for children! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

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