Maruyama Zoo

Yesterday’s adventure was a trip to Sapporo to go to the zoo.  After parking the car, we walked to a Japanese restaurant that I had been to with Miwako and had lunch.  Oishii katta!

 

The Maruyama Zoo is in the Maruyama Park. The day’s admission was 600 yen and a year’s pass only 1000 yen, so we each bought the year’s pass.

 

The zoos I’ve visited in recent years in the US have large open spaces, like the animals are in the wild.  This zoo reminded me of a zoo I would have visited as a child (which means many years ago). Most of the animals were in small indoor cages, some had outdoor yards.

 

 Giant pandas are my favorite but there are none in Hokkaido.  This zoo does have two red pandas.  At the end of the day, we both liked the red pandas best of all the animals here.  They were in two areas but could see each other through a clear partition.  They were both constantly on the move so it was difficult to take a photo.

 There were many kinds of bears and three polar bears.

 

 

The bird house was small, but there were a few brightly colored birds and some birds of prey outside.  The pink flamingos had one fluffy grey baby.

 

 

I liked the reptile and amphibian house, although some of the creatures were really creepy.

There were about ten chimpanzees.  We watched them quite a while.  High on a platform were a mother and baby.  The baby was trying to swing around and the mother would reach out from time to time.

 

One building had cats in cages with glass.  We were very close to the animals.

The other half of that building had other large animals, including zebras, hippos, and giraffes. The mother giraffe had recently been separated from her baby and she was trying to reach over the fence to touch it.

 

 

It rained off and on all day, but never hard.  We enjoyed the day and now that we have a year’s pass, we will be back at least one time in the next year.