Nighttime Zoorasia

For about two weeks, we had been counting down the days until Sydney could "see all the animals" at the zoo. Every day she would ask me when we were going to the zoo. So, last weekend despite the rain, we took our tour bus from base as planned to Zoorasia in Yokohama, which is about 45 minutes away.

First we ate a yakiniku buffet dinner. Sydney and Miranda most enjoyed the ice cream finale. (Sydney likes strawberry because it's pink. Miranda likes chocolate because it's mine.)

Then we set off to spend two hours in the rain at the zoo to see the animals at night. (Miranda was definitely the most comfortable and finally stopped fighting sleep about half-way through the zoo.) In August on Saturday nights, the zoo remains open in the evening since it is cooler weather and the animals are more likely to be active at this time.

Except maybe when it's raining, at which point they are usually taking cover (and likely thinking we are strange creatures). But luckily, they are often fed at this time, too, so they came out even in the rain to get food and we were able to see most of them. Elephants, monkeys, tigers, lions, penguins, polar bears, red panda bears, porcupines, etc.

One of the most unique animals at the zoo is the okapi, which is a short-necked relative of the giraffe, but it has stripes like a zebra on his rear end. (Our guide from base told us that this was an intentional breed between a horse and a zebra, but I believe this may not be true since I can't verify it anywhere. Anyone up for the challenge of confirming this, feel free! We haven't had any trivia contests lately, so consider this one and I'll send you a prize.)

Sydney's favorite nature lesson from the zoo is that "tigers eat meat," since she saw one being fed a big "steak." Yes, brutally honest as he is, Brian is fond of teaching Sydney the natural food chain, so she is also well aware that "bats eat bugs" and "sharks eat fish" from their nightly walks with Mitch along our neighborhood seawall. I'm not sure where she learned that life-size plastic elephants eat little girls, but it was only then that her joy morphed into this look of horror and she wouldn't go near those....but only momentarily until she saw the cute monkeys.