Nagoya Zoo

We made a trip to the zoo last weekend on Valentine's Day. It's only about 20 minutes away from our hotel by subway and it's only $5.00 for adults (and kids are free)! Visiting the zoo was a very bittersweet experience for us. On the plus side, it was really awesome to see a variety of different species from Asia. The zoo had tons of animals, reptiles, birds, etc. from all over the world. It was surprisingly large, and took us most of the afternoon to walk through. The major downfall to the zoo was that the animals were not kept in their "natural habitat" - meaning, a lot of the animals were caged or kept in pretty small areas. It was sad to see the animals pacing back and forth with no where to go or hide. Many of the cages were dirty - bugs everywhere, dirty water, & coins tossed into their environment. But on the other hand, we were able to be right next to the animals and see them up close. So if you can get over the sadness of seeing the animals in dirty & small environments, it's a really great experience. Not quite sure if we can or not, though. This spring we'll go back to see the botanical gardens.

Just going to post a few of my favorite pics....

There were a couple different species of Rhinos

This monkey was trained to count 1-5 on this machine to get a treat. He would sit there and push 1,2,3,4,5 over and over again to get snacks!!

Polar bears loved to play

We got to see the penguins SO close up

Our favorite species... the "Procyon lotor"... also known as the "Common Raccoon."
Just kidding.