The Tokyo Chapter: Tobu Zoo and LIGHTS!

Today was my husband's first day off for a winter vacation. The whole office closes for a week surrounding the New Year holiday - which is the biggest holiday of the year here. We decided a family fun day was in order. My son loves to visit zoos, so we decided to go to Tobu Zoo. Tobu Zoo is a zoo and amusement park all wrapped up into one. It just so happens that they also currently have a huge lights display, often called "illuminations" in Japanese.

We got out of the house at the decent hour of 9am. We needed the early start because it took us an hour an a half to get to the zoo. After one bus ride and three train rides, we arrived at the zoo. The zoo property is long and narrow with the amusement park rides covering one half and the zoo the other half.

A little disclaimer here: I personally am a fan of zoos. I think they can and do a lot of good as far as research and education. They are a place for people to see animals that they wouldn't normally be able to see. I am comforted by the fact that most animals in zoos these days were born in captivity. However, I hesitate to visit zoos in Japan, because they seem stuck in the 80's as far as animal enclosures and the boredom of the animals. I struggle between visiting these zoos to give them money to update their facilities and not visiting these zoos because I wonder if they really do have the best interest of the animals at heart. I prefer to believe the former, and therefore sometimes subject myself to visiting, even though I know I have such profound mixed emotions about it.

We walked determinedly toward the zoo section of Tobu Zoo, only stopping for a quick roller coaster ride for my son and husband since the line was super short. We were immediately greeted by a rhino, giraffes, zebra, ostrich, and a few other African animals (mostly separated from one another). I was immediately struck with how close we were to them and how low the fences between us and them are. I felt like the giraffe could have craned its neck and licked me if it wanted to!

The last 10-20 years, zoos in the US have put more and more protective barriers between the humans and the animals. Distance and fences are usually the first line of barriers to be updated. Tobu Zoo doesn't have those in place.

This was the zookeeper's hand during his zookeeper talk.

No zoom. I have now been WAY too close to a hippo!

My son fed the elephants fruit and veggies.

From there, we visited the zoo's superstar - the white tiger. Wow, she was beautiful. She was wandering around in her enclosure and repeatedly walked right up to us, which was both thrilling and terrifying, despite the glass in between us. White Tigers are very special to Chinese and Japanese mythology, representing the west of Chinese constellations. There was even a little shrine built out of the box used to originally bring the tiger to the zoo!

Next to the white tiger lives the lions. Next to the lion enclosure is a set of stairs going down that takes you into a popup area in the center of the lion enclosure! Once again - terrifying and thrilling all at the same time! The lions were pretty active while we were there, which was quite entertaining and thrilled my family to no end.

These are actually two enclosures. But I couldn't resist this awesome photo!

The other highlight of the zoo for me was visiting the firefly house. This attraction cost extra money, but since I've never seen a firefly in real life, I was more than willing to pay to see these amazing bugs that I've always been curious about. After paying ¥400 per person, we were taken into a room that was very dark to let our eyes adjust for several minutes. There was a recording telling us information, but I have no idea what she was saying, so we seemed to be in there longer than it probably was. (I was later told that the recording was explaining they breed the fireflies for the exhibit so they aren't taking any out of the wild.) After we had fully adjusted, we were taken to a theatre where we sat in comfy chairs. The room went totally dark and a curtain was lifted to reveal tiny little lights buzzing back and forth. I swear there were mirrors in there to make it seem like there were more fireflies, but I have no idea if that is true or not. I sat there entranced until the curtain went down and it was time to go. On our way out were able to see a few of the bugs that were dead. They were tiny!!! I always thought they were the size of my pinky nail. I had no idea some of the types of fireflies were 1/6 that size!

My husband pointed out their typo and the guy replied "Yeah. I know."

I'm guessing he hears that a lot.

After the animals, my son got to enjoy several amusement park rides. I am a bit surprised, but he's a bit of an adrenaline junkie. He loves coasters. The faster, the better for him! He's still limited to the kiddie rides, thank goodness! I don't think I can handle him going on more intense rides.

Just as he was wrapping up his ride time with a spin around the carousel, I suggested we ride the "airlift." They sky tram was really neat, decorated with steampunk looking fish, orcas, and octopus above the car that hauled us across the park. The moment we were leaving the station, all the holiday lights in the park suddenly lit up. It was a magical moment! We couldn't have timed it better.

While most holiday lights in the US disappear sometime between Christmas and New Years, many big illumination displays stick around until the end of February! I even saw an ad for one place that keeps them up until mid-March. Since they aren't typically Christmas themed, I understand the reason for keeping them around for a while. They really draw in the crowds.

The lights at Tobu Zoo were incredible. They just went on and on. I felt a sudden rush of joy that was simply electric. We wandered around absorbing all the sights. It was unlike anything I've ever seen.