A Visit To Our Favourite Place…

Saitama Children's Zoo! I won't rave on and on about it this time, I am sure I have brainwashed everyone into believing what a fantastic zoo it is already!

We got there just in time for the petting area and Ebi-kun headed straight to the snake! It was quite busy so there wasn't much time to really enjoy having a snake around your neck!

Ebi-kun loves the rabbits, far more than the guinea pigs, I keep expecting to hear those words 'Can we get one?'

This cracks me up, at the end of the petting hour, the guinea pigs are all put in one of the holding tables (for want of a better word) and the keeper tells everyone what is going on, the guinea pigs know what is coming next, just look at their little faces all eager in anticipation…

And then the runway is added and they all scurry down in single file as the head back to their pen, the kids point out their favourite and wave goodbye, it is all very cute!

The zoo now has a big athletic play area with lots of equipment, so we can't go and not have a play in there for an hour…

I don't want to share the picture yet, but for those in the area, next year is the year of the hours and they have it set up with a horse and a sign reading Happy New Year, well the equivalent in Japanese, you can go and stand by the horse and get your picture taken. There is a member of staff manning it and they will take the picture for you, with your camera if you want a family shot. Plus it is free!

I love these bushes, cut to celebrate the new lesser panda babies - if I was going to smuggle any animal out, it would be a lesser  panda or maybe the baby giraffe, not sure how I would get that in my bag though.

Hanging out with hairy friends....

We were at a lose end on Sunday and ended up doing out fallback activity - going to the zoo. Because we go so often, there is no stress or worry at trying to fit everything in, of course we have to visit the favourites... which includes the petting corner, Ebi-kun was a bit put out that there were no snakes out, he had to make do with a guinea pig!

We also made friends with a new addition to the zoo, a coffee coloured alpaca, seriously cute, Ebi-kun was quite smitten, alpaca-chan must have liked us too because there was no spitting.

The little photographer at work....

It was cold, especially when the wind blew but we had beautiful blue skies, I love the winter here, sunny and bright and dry most of the time.

Whilst we were at the zoo we decided on a family challenge for the year. My husband announced that the 2014 Chinese year is the year of the horse, last year he used a picture of Ebi-kun at the zoo with a snake around his neck for the year of the snake, for the New Years cards. He wanted a picture of Ebi-kun on a horse for this year, I upped the anti and declared that the challenge is to get a horsey picture every month for 2013 (I am think this will make my calendar making so much easier!) Ha!

Do you have any family challenges for the year? Share in the comments, I'd love to know what others are up to!

If you have been dilly-dallying about signing up for the ultimate kitchen clear out, sign up HERE, come on, you know your kitchen deserves it!

What do penguins, snakes and Beatrix Potter have in common?

Saitama Children's Zoo, that is what. It is no secret that this is one of my favourite places to visit. The weather at the weekend was perfect, sunny and warm enough for T-shirts but not hot and sweaty. We decided to head straight up to Penguin Hills - which is 500m straight up a hill, we managed to be the 2nd family there so we got in line to do the penguin feeding. It is ¥300 a cup and they only have 30 cups, so you have to be keen to get a spot!

The penguins are dead cute and the zoo supplies charts so that you can work out who is who. They have red or blue bands on one wing which tells you if it is male of female and coloured bands on the other wing to represent their name....

When we were done with the penguins we went down to the petting area. Ebi-kun went straight for the snake this time...

Then we had to try out several rabbits, guinea pigs and chicks. The petting times are limited so when it was time for the animals to be put away, we saw how the guinea pigs go 'home'. They use this run, it was so cute watching them all scuttle down there.

One thing that is quite odd about this zoo is the Beatrix Potter House, slap bang in the middle. It is a complete replica, along with the garden. The house is actually a Beatrix Potter library, they also have a Beatrix Potter Zoo which is a special area with all the animals out of her books, it seems very weird to me to go and look at robins or hedgehogs in a zoo setting! Maybe people in Africa think the same about lions and giraffe!

We didn't bother taking lunch with us, so we bought it at the cafe and sat outside. Then we did the rest of the animals at that end of the zoo and finished off with a hour at the athletic park.

As always, a great day out, made it home tired and happy! If we lived closer I am sure we would be there every weekend. Do you have a local favourite spot to visit, tell me about it...

art at the zoo...

 I asked Ebi-kun if he would like to sketch some animals when we went to the zoo and he thought it was a good idea so we took the art carry case with us. The zoo was really busy so we had to limit what to draw and where, first up was the Chinese Giant Salamander, which I have to say, is not a good looking beast! Ebi-kun was really taken with the penguins and wanted to draw one of those too, all the penguins have ID tags so we were able to find out that this fellas name was Horace (or something like that!). The lesser panda area was too busy to stop and draw so he did that picture in the car on the way home.

Actually drawing from real life is an important aspect in art so I really think we should do this more often and I would like to get a little water color set that we could add to the art carrier.

So, what is with the flowers? Well, I have finally upgrade my first generation iPhone to the iphone4s. The camera on my old phone was really pants and I wanted to try out the new one, I can't believe the difference! At least I don't need to carry my phone and camera everywhere with me now. The next big dilemma is what kind of case to get for it hmmm...

Snakes and penguins and sloths Oh My!

We has a great day yesterday at Saitama's Children Zoo. This is one of my all time favorite zoo's, it is so well thought out and designed for maximum enjoyment for kids (and if the kids are happy, the parents are happy!). I have raved about in the past here, here, and here.

We started off at the petting area, they the usual suspects...chicks, rabbits and guinea pigs and they also had a snake. Ebi-kun said he was a bit scared of touching the snake so I encouraged him to try - conquer your fears and all that. He ended up with it round his neck! It was a red corn snake and actually quite cute.

They also have sheep and goats wandering around and enclosures where the animals are wandering around with the visitors. They also have lots of these photo signs for comedy pictures, I dread to think how many we have of these over the years.

The big excitement was the new penguin area, I absolutely love this picture of the two of them eyeing each other up. You can feed the penguins but it is limited to 30 people and as the exhibit only opened the day before and it was mad busy we didn't bother trying, we will go again off season and try and grab a spot for penguin feeding.

All the areas for the animals are well laid out and well designed, they make as much of it as possible hands on. There are lots of lift the flap quizzes and information about the animals presented in a fun way. We sat in the woods to eat out lunch with mara roaming around us, what fun. After lunch we wandered through the dino park, spotted T-rex with a rather stylish art carrier...

Then we headed down to the koalas but before we got there we discovered the old picnic area had been converted into a big athletic area for the kids, so of course we had to try some of it out. Then it was the koalas, sloth, kangaroos and capybara. The kangaroos you actually walk through their enclosure, the same as the penguins and there are 3 or 4 bird enclosures like that too.

Other things that I like about this zoo... the animals all look well cared for, no signs of boredom. There are plenty of small animals as well as the giraffe and zebra. The signs are easy for kids to read and understand. They often had a stamp rally which encourages you to see lots of different animals. It is easy to do the whole zoo in a day. They have plenty of toilets and picnic areas. It is set in the hills so there is quite a bit of walking between areas and some would say this is not a good thing but I think that it is great because when the kids arrive at then next area they are worn out a bit so they can relax and concentrate on the animals not run round screaming like banshees! And finally, it's cheap!

If you live close enough to visit, I can't recommend it high enough. It is only ¥500 for adults, ¥200 for elementary kids and up and ¥600 parking. If you plan on going let me know, it would be fun to meet up.

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo....

This last weekend was a 3 day holiday. Normally we would have gone camping but hubby was away in China and got back really late Friday night plus Ebi-kun had yochien Saturday morning. (He told his yochien teacher that daddy had gone to North Korea, lol, she was a bit worried but then the next day he said daddy was in Shanghai, phew.) Then in the afternoon the boys went to football practice and I tried to get a couple of projects finished and out of the way. So Sunday we decided to go to Saitama Children's Zoo, I have blogged about this place before, it is one of our favourite spots. When we got there they were doing giraffe enrichment! They were basically telling the public what they do to keep the giraffes happy, they don't have enough tall trees to feed from all the time so they give them pellets, like pony nuts but for giraffes but they scoff them too fast and then get bored because there is not a lot else to do. So the keepers have made feeding boxes which make it more difficult for the giraffes to feed and they have to use their tongue in the same way that they would in the wild. Feeding them like this means they spend much of their day feeding like they do in a natural environment.

One of the things I like about this zoo is all the interactive puzzles and quizzes around the place, this one makes me laugh every time. It is in the petting enclosure where the pigs, sheep and goats wander around freely...

and the finished puzzle shows the different 'cuts' of meat on a pig!

In the petting area there was also a very pregnant goat, I showed Ebi-kun how to feel her belly to see if he could feel the baby move, and it did! We also had to go and pet the guinea pigs, we have just watched the Film G-Force so guinea pigs are a big hit just now.

After went to see the lesser pandas but there was only one out, there was a sign saying that there were new babies in the family and they will be out in the autumn, so we will have to go back, lesser pandas are just soooo cute!

Saitama Children's Zoo

We went to the zoo on Saturday, this is one of my favourite places to visit in the area. I am not a big fan of zoo's, especially if the animals are stuck in small cages, bored out of there head, this one is a bit different, the animals are in bigger enclosures and they all look well. There are not that many animals there but there are lots of things for the kids to do and there is loads of open space for them to run around. I'm not going to bore you with pictures of all the animals instead I will show you the other things the zoo has to offer...

Here are the kanagroo's :o) The Roo's are in an open enclosure so you can actually walk through, no bars between you and them!

This is in the koala house, there are bags of weights, the one Ebi-kun is holding is the weight of a koala.

This is in the dairy area, they do milking demo's, we had to drag Ebi-kun off this, it is explaining about the cows tail, the little square on the cow have flies on them and tabs of velcro and you have to use the swatter (tail) to get them off.

The petting area is quite big and has animals wandering around such as goats, pigs, sheep and ducks and there are puzzles for the kids to do, this one he is sorting which food each animal eats.

They had chicks to hold this time as well as the usual rabbits and guinea pigs, we also got to stroke an owl, I don't think I have touched an owl before, I was surprised how soft it was.

One of the odd things about the zoo is the Peter Rabbit reference library, they have built this house, just like the Peter rabbit one and there is a cute little Peter Rabbit play garden and a shop, I don't get why they have this in the middle of Japan - there again there are a lot of things I don't get about Japan.

When we got home, Ebi-kun drew this koala!

I am uploading the rest of the pictures to Flickr for those who are interested.

The zoo also has a kodomo no shiro in case the weather is bad, large areas to picnic, they have a stage and put on a show, an area with dinosaurs, a wading stream for the summer and pony rides for kids over 4. If you need a pushchair you can hire one for the day (handy for pushing the picnic bag around I find!). It is quite hilly but there is a little train that goes round for those with weak legs.