Chiba Zoological Park

10.17.07

This little boy pictured above was on the monorail with us.
He was very excited to have the opportunity to ride it for his first time.

This is the The Chiba Zoological Park Entrance.

Today before our first class (Lauren's was at 3pm and mine was at 4pm), Lauren and I took a trip to the Chiba Zoological Park. We took the Sobu line to Chiba, and then took the Chiba Monorail to the Zoological Park. We were just as excited to be there and the hundreds of little children running around with their colored hats; each different color represents a different age group.

I really loved their little hats. These ones have a cute little green ribbon at the top too.

I was very impressed with the Zoo and all that it had done to provide really nice homes for the animals that lived there. There were a lot of animals that I hadn't ever seen in a zoo before. I should also mention that I hadn't ever been as close to certain types of animals as I had been today. I was about 2 feet away from a penguin and a few others. Of all the animals there, my favorite ones were the spider monkeys. It was amazing how the used their tales just like a fifth hand. They were so agile and made climbing the cage walls look so easy. I wanted to get in there and play with them.

I was able to get so close to the spider monkey.

We also saw some monkeys that reminded me of Jack (the monkey) in The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The orangutans were so big! One of them climbed down and was sitting next to a glass viewing area. I was going to take a picture, because he was so close, but I couldn't bear to do it. He looked so sad as he sat there with his body propped up against the glass, wringing his hands. I wish that I could've spoken to him. I don't know what I would've said or asked, but he looked like he needed to be comforted.

The Chiba Zoo is also famous for it's red pandas because of the two babies (twins) that were just born. Lauren and I participated in a contest where you can vote for the names of the two female red panda babies. I chose Miku and Sumi. This week was the second week that the two red pandas were allowed to be seen in person by the public. They were spending their debut frolicking in the grass. It was really cute.

Here is one of the baby red pandas.

For some reason the neck of this giraffe looked so odd to me. It reminded me of a cartoon; when the character is facing you they look fine, but when they turn to the side, they're as thin as a piece of paper.

The prairie dog performance being watched by eager children on class trips. This is one of my favorite pictures from today. (I also liked one that Lauren took one of me pretending to be a flamingo but I still have yet to get it from her.)

The zoo had a really large collection of guinea pigs in the petting area, and if you looked up on the wall you could identify them each by name.

Tomorrow I will wake and go to the Funabashi fish market with Hiroko. Until then, I need to take a nice hot shower because it's starting to get colder here as winter approaches. For some reason my pictures won't load right now so you will have to wait for them until tomorrow (sorry).

Random Shout Outs: I'm sorry Ada, but I misspelled the name of the store. It is Carrefour just like you said. Sorry about that. Yes Hu, "I'm home!" (person 1) in Japanese is tadaima and okaerinasai is the response (person 2).