Zoo Day

We had a trying night last night.  Went to bed at 10pm, I woke up at 12.45 and Matt and Tom woke up at 2.  We didn't get back to sleep until 5am and then of course woke up with a jump at 10am.  Oh hum, I guess we will get there at some point.

Billy the Sea Eagle - who now lives with us!

Today we planned to go to Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo.  We don't normally do zoos in Japan as they don't have the best reputations, however, Hokkaido is different.  We quickly ate our breakfast (bakery rolls) and headed down to the subway.  We then walked through Maruyama Park (very lovely) to the zoo.   It was pretty hot and humid so we were hot and sweaty on arrival, yuckity yuck.

Tom and a Hokkaido Brown Bear

Oh hum, first thing we saw was a Steller's Sea Eagle - a very beautiful and very very big bird with a very bright yellow beak, native to this area of Japan.  Next was a petting zoo with some very tired and hot looking sheep, Shetland ponies and chickens.  Then the interesting animals...first up... Orangutans - yay.  Tom was wearing his Orangutan shirt as well.  Anyway, they didn't do much to start with, but after a while both the orang-utans in outdoor areas started to swing and walk around and gave us quite a display.  We were all very happy.  Next up were the Macaques which are Japanese but not native to Hokkaido.  They had a huge outdoor enclosure and were busy eating their lunch which had been scattered around.

We carried on up through the zoo and found ourselves a native Hokkaido Brown Bear who was tarting around up by the glass almost trying to lick everyone watching.  He was quite a tufty looking bear, with strands of long fur all over and a drip at the end of his nose as he walked up and down surveying the humans on offer.

Red Panda

At the top of the zoo was the prize exhibit, a polar bear.  He was living in a brand new enclosure which opened in March - very nice it was too - huge, with a mountain and a pool with a tunnel so us small humans could watch him if he went swimming. Unfortunately he wasn't up for playing, but it was good to be able to see him anyway.

At this point we had lost the hot sun and it had started to rain - bugger!  We didn't have umbrellas or rain coats with us - poo!  Oh hum, it wasn't cold, it was just wet so we had to dash from place to place.  Our tummies were also rumbling so we decided to find lunch.  Of course all the other visitors to the zoo were also doing the same so quite a few of the cafes were full, however, we found a restaurant run by old women in overalls which had one table left.  We took it.  Matt was busy translating the menu, when he went round to order he found the usual plastic models, so Tom and I went round chose what we wanted and got Matt to order.  It was curry for the boys and oyakodon (chicken and egg on rice) for me.  It was good nosh, we were all happy and Tom persevered with his new chopsticks and managed to eat most of it with them rather than use the spoon.

Underwater bear

It was still raining, so we spent the rest of the day running from enclosure to enclosure, luckily (probably because this place is freezing cold in the winter) most of the enclosures are inside which meant we got wet, dried out, got wet, dried out etc etc. We visited Africa and saw a Lion who was pacing and roaring and a hippo who was completely submerged in his pond - we were able to see him underwater and he was floating (it is obviously a hard life).  Next was Polar World where we saw a very sleepy Siberian Tiger and an equally sleepy Snow Leopard.

Next stop was the Alpine area, where we saw Sun Bears, and then went into a special room where there were 3 very lovely looking red pandas.  What was special about this room, was a train track hanging from the ceiling which had a suspended route across the room.  There was a red panda on this route who was walking across it and then coming down into his enclosure and then up on to it again for an amble etc.  I have never seen anything like that before, I'm guessing red pandas don't jump.  Anyway we stayed in there quite a while watching him (and sheltering from the rain).

We carried on to do the amphibians and reptiles, then the tropical birds before ending up at the polar bears again.  We went in and this time there were 2 bears in the enclosure.  They were a little more animated this time and as we watched, they headed down to their pool.  To our delight one of them jumped in so we rushed downstairs to the underwater tunnel to watch and were spell bound as we watched him paddle around and dive.  What a display, we were very lucky and very happy.  

Oh video was shot by Tom by the way.

We then headed back towards the entrance, we ended up in the shop (of course!) where Tom fell in love with a soft toy Stellar's Sea Eagle which got bought and brought home (he doesn't have any eagles).

Izakaya (yes Tom was the only child there, but they didn't seem to mind!)

I must say it was an exceptionally clean zoo - all the animal enclosures were sparkling, the animals without exception looked very well cared for and healthy and the enclosures big and full of toys, ropes, equipment etc as required.  Considering it is the school holidays it wasn't very busy and there were ample play areas for children (including cots for babies - how cool is that?!)  Considering it was free for children and only 600 Yen for adults to enter, it really was a bargain day out.  We basically stayed until they kicked us out!

We got the bus and underground back to our flat (our feet were aching and it was chucking it down - we got very wet) and had showers etc.  As it was raining and we were tired, we had tea in a nearby izakya, very nice it was too: potato salad, mixed yakitori, karage, char grilled edamame, salmon, omelette and lots of nice cold, ice cold beer.  Lovely.  Also we got involved in a game of bingo - we didn't win, but it was fun!  A good day.