Technically it is the Ueno Zoological Park. Zoo actually means elephant in Japanese but dang it it's always been a zoo to me and I'm too lazy to type out the whole name.
Leave it to the Tokyo-ites to never do things in half measure. The Ueno Zoo is both a zoo and a park all in one taking up acouple of square miles of prime Tokyo property. The animal displays are an amazing combination of old zoo (read square box to hold animal) and modern displays complete with small brooks for the tigers and a wonderful a/c system for the polar bears.
I'm really not one for birds but even I had to be impressed with the variety they have here, and all three of us sat for probably 20 minutes and watched the monkeys. We spent the entire day wandering and were alittle depressed when the speakers came on during the last hour to tell us that some of the animals were being moved to their nighttime enclosures so don't miss them.
We came to find out that rather than a warning to hurry up and see them, they were really saying that you should go to the nighttime closure displays where some of the animals can be seen from less than 20 feet away. I had no idea hippos were as massive as they are, the picture definately doesn't do him justice. We were also able to see black rhinos and a giraffe this way and it was amazing!!
Make sure to look closely at the water lilies behind Kirk, yes, they are as tall as he is and some of them were a good 3-4 feet in diameter. I don't think we got a picture of the overall 'pond' but it is huge and atleast half of it is filled with these. Kirk and I discussed how we would love to go back when they are in bloom, it must be gorgeous.
By the time we got to the petting zoo Sarah was sacked out, but that was probably for the best, she's still alittle young to enjoy it. We did manage to see most of the animals but the other half of the park which contains the gardens and the temples will have to wait for another day...
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