NIGHT ZOO

We were invited last Sunday by Ruther’s friend, Asuka to Zoorasia, a nice zoo just a train station and bus ride away from our home. We have been to Zoorasia before, in 2006, but for the whole month of August 2008, the zoo is opening its doors beyond its usual operating hours for the public to know more about the nocturnal animals. Thus, Night Zoorasia came about. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for Nikki to review the animals at the zoo and for Ethan to be exposed to all the creatures there. So Ruther and I agreed to go.

We left the house at around 330pm, had a quick snack at McDonald’s, took the train to Nakayama station and then boarded the bus that would take us to Zoorasia. Since it was the last day/night for Night Zoorasia, almost all the people in the bus were headed there. When I smiled at the nice old woman seated beside Nikki and me, she smiled back and said Nikki was kawaii (cute). I said thank you and she said something else but I was lost. Ruther came to my rescue and what the woman wanted to know was if we were headed to the zoo. Ruther said yes. I think she adored Nikki because he couldn’t stop talking (in English) during the whole bus trip. Anyway, after 30 minutes or so, we finally made it to Zoorasia. Asuka and her friends were already inside so we bought our tickets and tried to make our way towards them while looking at the animals that were up and about. Nikki was quite excited and Ethan was too. It was a good thing Ethan was not too scared of the darkening sky and just walked along with us although there were instances where he asked to be carried. We finally caught up with Asuka at the Oceanian Grassland area where the kangaroos were busy eating and hopping about. Nikki loved their hopping movements and Ethan would say “hop! hop! hop!” as they jumped to and fro. As dusk turned to night, I was so glad that I applied Off Lotion on the boys and me because not even one mosquito found its way onto our skin. Anyway, we then looked at the animals as a group and we all had a lot of fun. We saw Shifu (from Kung Fu Panda), Shere Khan (from The Jungle Book), Hedwig (from Harry Potter), Simba’s relatives (from The Lion King) and even some of the Happy Feet characters. If you don’t know those animals well, you might need to do more movie-watching.

Anyway, it was wonderful to see all those animals but the nicest one was the extraordinary okapi. Nikki already saw this animal the last time we were there but it just looks so unique I’m sure he enjoyed seeing it again. He said it looked like a zebra and a horse. I was happy to see it up close again and it was so fascinating. It looked like a horse but walked more like a giraffe. (It’s actually called a “forest giraffe”.) I couldn’t take a good photo of the okapi because flashes were prohibited and the okapi kept on moving about so most of the shots were pretty blurry. But I did take a video of it and was quite satisfied with that.

At around 7pm, we were done with the tour and we checked the gift shop for some souvenirs. I got a cute coaster and 2 phone accessories that had an okapi on them. They were on sale. We then waited for our bus and when it was time to queue up, we separated ways with Asuka and her friends. We took the bus back to Nakayama, had dinner at KFC (which the boys loved because it was fried chicken) and then we went home.

I was glad we had this special trip to the zoo. Not only was it a great field trip for the boys, it was also a great bonding experience with new friends and for us as a family. Hopefully, there will be more fun trips this month.