Sunday and time for Ueno Zoo! Ever since I came here I've been seriously craving panda interaction, and today was the day. Ueno Zoo is huge and in central Tokyo, but costs about a tenth of what Swedish zoos charge. They do choose random things to sell cheap in this country.
They had all animals you could ask for, including giant pandas, giraffes, hippos, capybaras, gorillas, elephants - even my absolute favourite animal of all times maned wolves (who of course were sleeping like logs when I got to their area)! Photos below.
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| Vulture |
I must admit it was a little bit saddening, however. As you may know, I'm something of an animal friend and largely believe they should be out in the free. Nevertheless, I know zoos do a lot of good work in keeping species alive and so on, but when I see birds lying in a corner in a tiny cage-room with not as much as a rock inside, I am not happy. Or when each hippo is assigned an individual 'cell' if you will with a small water area + an elevated floor area. Or cages for eagles in which they hardly are allowed to flap their wings. A lot of Ueno Zoo was like that, and for that I'm not a happy lady. As incredible as it is to see all these animals up close, they should not be treated so badly. Also they looked sad. Except the seals - they always look so happy!
Afterwards we went to a noodle (
udon) restaurant in the Tokyo Building to eat this yummyness: cold udon with
goma (sesame), soy, onion, and ginger paste. It may look little, but it was so, so good!
And some more Christmas lights in the posh, posh area in central Tokyo. Burberry, LV, and fancy cars everywhere one looked. Pretty as always. This coming week will be teaching (I got another teaching gig), volleyball, gingerbread biscuits (went to IKEA yesterday again to stock up...), classes, gym, perhaps a little party, and more gingerbread biscuits. Standard procedure.
Jo x
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