Kyoto City Zoo

Today I went to the Kyoto City Zoo. It was pretty cool, but definitely no Bronx Zoo or San Diego Zoo. I think I've been spoiled by having the chance to see so many cool zoos and aquariums that now any new places find it hard to match up. :)

The habitats were old fashioned and largely in need of repainting/landscaping, but there was a large selection of animals, like this adorably bored jaguar and this hippo who kept flicking her ears non-stop. I especially enjoyed watching the feedings of the Rhesus monkeys and penguins. The monkeys went crazy for their meal of apples, carrots, potatoes, bananas, and ... sardines. The penguin feeding was fun because the zoo keeper let the crowd (me included!) throw the fish to the penguins. It was fun, not to mention really cute when the small kids would try to toss the fish and miss the enclosure entirely.

But, the most notable part of the zoo was finding out that children under age 12 get in free. This resulted in hundreds of school children and their teachers swarming around the zoo all day on field trips. Most of the classes had uniforms where every child was dressed the same and wore the same BRIGHTLY colored hats. The youngest children each had backpacks with adorable characters like Hello Kitty, Winnie the Pooh, Anpanman, and others emblazoned all over! Most of the older elementary school aged kids had backpacks like these, but also carried little zoo clipboards around and took notes or drew sketches.

At the lion/tiger/jaguar enclosure, a family with two little girls and a little boy sang the following song incessantly: "Lion-san, Lion-san, Lion-san, Konnichiwa Lion-san". It was very cute .... and funny when the Lion actually growled back at them. I guess the Lion demands more complicated lyrics in songs dedicated to him.