Oji Zoo

On Sunday, we left Miki for the first time in a couple of weeks. We decided it would be fun to go to the closest zoo, the Oji Zoo in Kobe. The star of the Oji Zoo is their panda. I had seen it previously, but it was Becky’s first panda experience. You can’t really oversell a panda. They’re terribly cute, and something about the slowness of their movements makes them look like they are animatronics. There is a video below along with some of our favorite animal shots.

The zoo itself is a little old, but it’s fairly pleasant, with lots of trees and places to picnic. It is not very large, but this makes it quite manageable. You can see almost every animal in just a couple of hours, unlike many zoos where you go home tired and without having seen half the animals. In cramped Japan, one of the first things people ask about the zoo is do the animals have enough space? Obviously, this question can be extended to every zoo, but in general I don’t think the Oji zoo is too bad. The big cats and the brown bear were the only ones that seemed a little stir crazy in their small areas. They were in the middle of remodeling the bear area, so maybe at least he’ll get a little more pacing room soon.

After the zoo, we went about 15 minutes down the track to Nishinomiya, where the Nishinomiya Gardens mall resides. It opened in 2008, the last time I was in Japan. It’s a massive, western style mall filled with a huge variety of shops, and it has a rooftop garden you can hang out in. Searching the streets of Kobe, Osaka, and Tokyo for cool shops is part of what I love about Japan. At the same time, it’s sometimes a nice change of pace to leisurely walk through a climate-controlled mall where everything is in the same place. 

For dinner, we shared a massive Sasebo Burger. I learned later that it was invented at or near the Sasebo U.S. naval base in southern Japan. The burger was pretty impressive and reminded me a little of the Meers burger we had in Meers, Oklahoma a few months back. Although this burger included an egg and thick strips of bacon. 

We opted to share the American sized drink cup, the first cup I have seen of this size in Japan. I was very impressed by the double straw lid. Simple logic: if the drink looks big enough to share, then make a lid with two straws. I love it.