7/17 Tobe Zoo

Previously I had written a checklist of all of the things I wanted to do and places I wanted to see while I was in Japan. I gave this to my tutor Rin and my study abroad professor Dr. Tokuoka. One of the items was the Tobe Zoo in Matsuyama. So, of course, that meant that as a class we had to go visit the zoo. It was a Thursday, but luckily enough none of us had class on that day.

When we arrived into the parking lot of the zoo, it was absolutely pouring rain. But we had a mission to accomplish, so we had to keep moving forward! We all waddled up to the entrance and bought our tickets. Rin let me know that she had a mission to see the beloved Peace the polar bear! I think that we immediately went to eat lunch, so we walked past several of the large exhibits like giraffes, penguins, and the hippo. The cafeteria was quaint and was placed up on the second floor of this area which acted as an observation deck as well. On one side of the building you could see out to a large lake that supposedly had a zipline going across it.

I think for lunch I had katsu curry, and some of my classmates had the hamburg steak. At about 2pm we were finally free to go enjoy the zoo. In that cafeteria area there were a few exhibits: zebras, giraffes, hippos, rhino, and a large marabou stork who stole the show by holding his wings out. We went up to the zipline platform, where I was trying to figure out what the word "suwan-boto" was which apparently meant "swan boat." From there we could see the Children's Castle which was absolutely massive.

We went into the tiger exhibit (who was sleeping) and next to the monkey paradise. There was this giant tower that was made to replicate some rocky cliffs where the Japanese monkey naturally lives. Some of them were also fighting at the bottom, and some of them had babies! There were some other animals that are unusual in Californian zoos such as water buffalo and tapir.

There was a small animal area that was absolutely my favorite. I got to see red pandas and river otters and call ducks and macaws and prairie dogs and tanuki and red fox and sun bears, oh my! There were also some ponies and a native Japanese horse breed, the noma horse. 

It was starting to rain harder so we took refuge in a little display house/library. They had a lot of live birds in there and a lot of taxidermy animals. One of the birds was actually an owl, and there was another little black bird with an orange beak and white eyeliner. This black bird turns out to be a highly endangered species in Japan named the "oriental dollarbird." Two more included a sleepy  amazon parrot and a very chill white-bellied green pigeon. There was also some small containers with little bats sleeping inside them.

While we were hiding from the rain, it turned out that had gotten lucky and a zoo employee wanted to introduce us to one of the bats. She asked us where we were visiting from and we said Ehime University. She told us that she was an alumni! I think from the same faculty as us. We had a conversation about different things while she brought out the bat and then began telling us about it. Since we were in the library, there was a kid reading, who then immediately came over to see the bat. She let us touch the bat, and it really felt like skin and bones with a little bit of fur. She put the bat back to sleep and we let her know how grateful we were. One of the other cool things was that they had pictures and a taxidermy of the last Japanese river otter before they were hunted to extinction.

We went back out as it had stopped raining for a little bit. We kept trekking on and found a polar bear, but I don't think it was Peace. It was sleeping though, which was too bad. There were some sea lions, and a grey heron pretending to be a penguin. We saw some armadillos too! Then we headed to the lions den, which was a two-story building with great views into the lion exhibit. There were a few in there, and they were all lying right next to the windows to stay out of the rain. We walked back out to get to the amphibian "chamber" and on the way we saw the hippo swimming around really fast. In the amphibian/reptile area there were some gators, and smiling iguanas, and other critters. But unfortunately this was it, there wasn't much left.

We did get to see a cardboard cutout of Peace looking glamorous though. Tobe Zoo was really fun.