Category: Urban Essays

Our Greenery Day (4 May)

We went to Fukuoka City Zoo and Botanical Gardens to see the roses. (Because it was Greenery Day, admission was free.)
But most of the buds were still not in bloom yet, although they were nice last year.
We went to the greenhouse and view tower somehow feeling it was not much fun, and went to the zoo next.

It wasn’t a day with very strong sunshine, so we could go around more than usual.
The biggest hit animal this year was the ostrich. They are big and are kind of short on hair (feathers), but even so they are somehow charming.
And porcupines, too. Their short legs and thick bodies are like our cat Kuro. They are cute!

A kangaroo was lying down so we watched what he did next: he was scratching his hips.
The tapirs looked comfy when a keeper brushed them. Their legs were cute so we took their photograph.

We usually don’t pay attention to birds but we looked around at them this time. I basically don’t like the movement of a bird ducking its neck back and forth. But the snowy owl smiled nicely (we felt) just like it’s rumoured to do, and peacocks are still beautiful even though I saw them many times when I was a kid.

A surprising thing was that we could see many big wild birds in the trees inside the zoo! We first found a nest where a mother bird was feeding her big aggressive kids, which were almost the same size as her. And we found more and more! They were pretty noisy.

We also saw and took photographs of popular lions, elephants, and a giraffe (Kibo), but there are too many, so I decided not to show them here.
We were looking forward to seeing the camel, Saburo, but he got married and went to Ooshima.
Only Jiro the hippopotamus is still alive, but he seems healthy and had a good appetite.
We also could see a Tsushima leopard cat in a glass box in her cage. (They basically appear at night, so the time we visited there was too early for them.)

– YS, 7 May 2008

7 May 2008