Talking to the animals

 

Summers here are always far too hot and humid for me, but this year has been particularly bad. The temperature has been in the mid-30s everyday for over a month, and our town has often popped up in the news as the hottest place in Japan. Hard to believe when you remember the snow we had last year!

 

So even though we can almost see the sea from our house, we haven't been to the beach at all this year. Not even once. It's just too hot there, even with a bit of sea breeze, not to mention the challenges of running around after 2 little monkeys, including one who would want to eat all the sand. Instead we've tried to have a few indoor days out. Last week we went to a temporary mini zoo set up at Yumeminato Tower, where in the past we've visited a sea life exhibition and a really cool light show.

 

Obviously there weren't any elephants, giraffes or lions to see, but there was a nice variety of small animals such as squirrel monkeys, a sloth, turtles, a collection of nocturnal animals, pelicans, parrots and lots more. Being that it was aimed at young children, even T was tall enough to look in the enclosures by himself. Most of the enclosures were reasonably sized, at least for a temporary exhibition, and the animals seemed happy. K enjoyed it all, but I think it was T who really had the best time. It was a completely new experience for him, at least since he has become big enough to take an active role. He rushed about, pointing out his favourites and declaring most things to be either 'cats' or 'ducks', with the occasional 'lion' thrown in for good measure.

 

Meeting a beaver...



...and a lizard.

The meerkats had a rather cool enclosure, raised off the ground and with little bubble viewing domes. It's rather hard to see in this picture, but T and I are inside the nearest bubble, K is in the other one and the ball of fluff in between is a meerkat. The boys spent ages playing here.

After we'd seen all the animals we went up the tower to enjoy the view across the bay, before going out for lunch and then heading home again in time to go out once more for K's swimming class. Busy days...