Today we went to Nogeyama Zoo, which i highly recommend to the visitors of Yokohama. I cannot say that it's the best zoo i've ever seen, or that it's really good (because of its lack of space for most of the animals), but if you ignore that, then it's lots of fun there. First of all, it's for free, so you could just come whenever you want, second of all, it's not too big and has lots of benches, so you could just walk around like in some kinda park and sit down and just enjoy the greenery around you (which you cannot do in most of the places in big cities...). It also has an adorable mirror in the toilet, well, at least girls' toilet. It has a small snout and ears, so when you bend down a little bit for washing your hands, you become a cute animal. Nice idea, isn't it?
When it comes to me, there are two things that got stuck in my mind. Those made me totally happy and those are the reason, why i would come again.
Just at the beginning of the zoo you have Red Pandas without any fences!!! It was really hot, so they mostly were inside though, resting from the sun and heat, but every once in a while one of them came outside, walked around a little bit and made me happy with its fluffiness! Red pandas are one of my favorite animals, so i'm always happy to at least glance at them. Perhaps it's mean to say, but i have to admit, i would gladly become an owner of one of those cuties. I guess it's really difficult to fulfill all the requirements to be able to have these animals as pets at home, but when you try, there's nothing impossible. Maybe one day, maybe...
The second thing who impressed me, was almost at the very ending of the zoo. They had a facility for small pets like guinea pigs, rats and chickens. And you can play with all of them!!!
The guinea pigs were pretty lazy and fat, or maybe i didn't know that they supposed to be that big, but they were so soft!!! You could broom them and stroke them and carry around a little bit, that's just so nice! It was pretty odd for us to play with those small animals, because we were surrounded all the time by small children which kinda let us understand that we're way out of the age limits here, but i just didn't care too much. I've never had a guinea pig, but now i definitely would like to keep one! Although the rats brought more memories, since i had one in the past... I was so much enjoying them, that i will consider again the possibility of keeping them as pets at home.
In that facility there were maybe 50 rats or so... And they were extremely friendly. It's enough for you to put down your finger at the side of their cage and they would just crawl all over you and tickle in the process. My mom would just freak out in a place like this, cause she just hates rats! But i was happy like a kid to be able to play with those small fluffs!
The bad thing in the zoo was, that they had really high fences all over, so i couldn't take pictures of most of the animals, nor could i see them properly. Animals, like zebras, giraffes, bears, lions and so on were kept behind those fences.
The sad part also is the space. For example, they have a lion couple and probably 10 square meters for them, so it was a little bit painful to see them there, suffering from the heat and not being able to walk around or go into water, because they didn't have any pool or something. Or, that beautiful turtle which was living in aquarium like i had at home for fishes!!! Well, maybe that aquarium was slightly bigger, but still... It was too small for a turtle. Well, you get my point. But i guess space in Japan is a difficult topic...
After visiting Nogeyama Zoo we went for a brief walk around that part of Yokohama and visited Naritasan shrine (it's also called Iseyama shrine). It was a pretty big shrine, but what struck me most was the location. It was literally in-between all the buildings. For example, if you lived in that block house right next to it, you could almost touch it through the window, so it was really weird. But then again, we come back to the topic "space in Japan". They are saving up every single inch on the ground, so it shouldn't surprise me too much. I remember one temple in Tokyo, which was really squeezed between the buildings. The first time i was looking for it, i didn't even notice it. My brain probably couldn't believe it's possible, but then during one festival, we had to go to that shrine and just then i forced myself to believe it's a temple there.
Today i tried something that i've never eaten before and it was SO DELICIOUS! In english it's called Lady's fingers and it's originally coming from Egypt and Ethiopia. It's like a small fluffy long peppers, but it's not spicy. We had them in miso soup and i had to go for additional bowl of soup, because it was so damn delicious, i just couldn't resist it! It's a pity that i've never seen them in Germany... Anyway, if you happen to see them, buy them and cook something. You won't regret that!
Enjoy some more pictures of Nogeyama-Zoo:
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