Yokohama Zoo

Many of you back home have expressed concern for our safety over the last couple weeks because the media has been reporting on 2 typhoons that have hit Japan. Thanks for all your concern. It's actually raining pretty hard as I write this and apparently today's typhoon hit very hard down south in Okinawa but, once it made contact with land it weakened a lot and now we are only experiencing moderate wind and rain. 

Look Mom, storm shutters!

Last weekend we had much stronger weather and Mike and Reese got to stay home from work and school. But, even though we are on the coast, we are well protected. Our house has metal storm shutters on all the windows so we moved everything inside and stayed indoors. We were fine. We have actually used the down time to watch some movies, bake cookies and just "veg out" as a family. 

In between the storms we've actually had some pretty decent weather. Yesterday we took a trip up to Yokohama (about 45 minutes by car) to go to the zoo, or Zoorasia as they call it. It was really one of the nicer zoo experiences I have had and I lived in San Diego and worked at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo so, I'm sure you consider me somewhat of an expert. 

 Reese - as calm as if she does this everyday.

Like the SD Zoo, the animal's environments  are as close as possible to what they would inhabit in the wild. Consequently it's beautifully landscaped with a lot to look at besides the animals. 

Quinn - doing his best Okapi impersonation.

The zoo was great deal, adults pay only 600 yen ($6) and kids are free! Mike and I both observed right away there was no real attempt to sell us anything; no expansive gift shops, no one trying to sell you kettle corn, pretzels or churros every 5 feet. In fact we walked around for about 20 minutes looking for ice cream.We joked that it was kind of insulting that no one was trying to price gouge us. How do they feed the animals if they aren't charging you $25 to park or get in?!?!?

It's also one of the more kid friendly zoos I know of. The play spaces were plentiful and very cool and there was no additional charge for any of it. 

Only the camel rides had a charge and that was only $5. What was nice was that you could only ride at specific times throughout the day. Thus eliminating long lines and giving the camels a break. (Sadly, this is not Reese on the camel. That time-slot was sold out and we left before the next one. Something to look forward to next time!)

At Zoorasia, kids can hang out in the upper branches with baby chimps.

Even though this zoo is actually larger in area than SD Zoo, there were only 2 or 3 places to buy food and it seemed like most of the patrons brought their own lunch anyway. 

There were large open areas with tables and shade to sit in. These sections were right near play spaces so kids could run around while the adults relaxed.  

The Japanese are really expert picnickers, they had blankets, roll out mats and they remove their shoes before cracking into their bento boxes filled with all kinds of tasty looking treats. 

We sat on the ground eating all-American PB&J, sliced apples and sipping from our water bottles.

All in all I'd say it was a perfect day to visit the zoo. The weather was cool enough that the animals were active but we were perfectly comfortable in short sleeves. It is a 3-day weekend for Mike (Columbus Day) and for the Japanese (Sports Day) but it wasn't very crowded. We had a great time!