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Higashiyama Zoo (Sunday)
Oct. 23rd, 2012 04:44 pmOh, hey, I kinda disappeared, sorry. I did not get eaten by the zoo animals at this time. I did see bikers on Big Wheels (motor-tricycles anyway), and I did go the wrong way:
![[Almost twice as much walking as I planned, around 3 miles]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/4873cbab96dd/678086-532902/underhill.hhhh.org/~igg/2012-10-21-map.jpg)
I still don't know how it happened, but I went behind that tennis center and got nowhere and turned, and then there was a whole lot of nothing. There was a guy walking down the other side of the street at one point who looked like a fifty-year-old from a rock band, and he had a dog who was clearly some mutt, not a canonical Japanese dog (usually a little Shiba Inu, sometimes dachshunds, always tidy). I liked them both immediately.
I didn't think I would ever see this in Japan:
![[Unmaintained sidewalk grown all grassy]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/55e0c4373508/678086-532902/underhill.hhhh.org/~igg/2012-10-21-sidewalk.jpg)
But there was wildlife!
( Grasshoppers and butterflies, anyhow. )
I walked over a very large hill on that unmaintained sidewalk and wound up in Kitaotsubo, which I had not heard of before. Oops. To do: get a map of the entire city, not just part of it. I turned left and walked some more, and got to Uedayama, which I had also not heard of. There was an option to go left again, back over the mountain, but I went forward some more in my dead-reckoning way, and triumphed -- eventually I hit a T-junction, but with the chance to walk through a forested bit, and after that I saw a parking sign for Higashiyama something and started hearing loudspeaker announcements.
Lots of people with kids were around, always a good sign of a zoo, and I even got valuable information from one of the kids. He went up to a shrub and picked some inconspicuous flowers, then smelled them as he carried them off. I sniffed carefully and found that they were the source of the mysterious, wonderful tropical-fruit smell that I keep detecting in random places around the city. Once I knew what the bush looked like, I found out they're usually white, but these were orange:
![[These smell like mangoes only good]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/ee542454ea38/678086-532902/underhill.hhhh.org/~igg/2012-10-21-flower.jpg)
Now I just have to figure out what their name is.
When I arrived I was very puzzled that I didn't have to pay -- this happened several times during the day, and later I found out that everything was free due to the Nagoya City Festival. Score. I walked into this:
![[Lake with swan boats, helicopter boats, jet boats, koala boats... Sky Tower at right]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/d8e7df3b1c50/678086-532902/underhill.hhhh.org/~igg/2012-10-21-park.jpg)
It is, unfortunately, an old-school zoo. None of the animals really had enough space to be happy, and some of them were clearly messed up and pacing freakily. The babies, the birds, and the herps were all just fine, though. There was a lot to enjoy.
( Cut for many smallish photos )
I still don't know how it happened, but I went behind that tennis center and got nowhere and turned, and then there was a whole lot of nothing. There was a guy walking down the other side of the street at one point who looked like a fifty-year-old from a rock band, and he had a dog who was clearly some mutt, not a canonical Japanese dog (usually a little Shiba Inu, sometimes dachshunds, always tidy). I liked them both immediately.
I didn't think I would ever see this in Japan:
But there was wildlife!
( Grasshoppers and butterflies, anyhow. )
I walked over a very large hill on that unmaintained sidewalk and wound up in Kitaotsubo, which I had not heard of before. Oops. To do: get a map of the entire city, not just part of it. I turned left and walked some more, and got to Uedayama, which I had also not heard of. There was an option to go left again, back over the mountain, but I went forward some more in my dead-reckoning way, and triumphed -- eventually I hit a T-junction, but with the chance to walk through a forested bit, and after that I saw a parking sign for Higashiyama something and started hearing loudspeaker announcements.
Lots of people with kids were around, always a good sign of a zoo, and I even got valuable information from one of the kids. He went up to a shrub and picked some inconspicuous flowers, then smelled them as he carried them off. I sniffed carefully and found that they were the source of the mysterious, wonderful tropical-fruit smell that I keep detecting in random places around the city. Once I knew what the bush looked like, I found out they're usually white, but these were orange:
Now I just have to figure out what their name is.
When I arrived I was very puzzled that I didn't have to pay -- this happened several times during the day, and later I found out that everything was free due to the Nagoya City Festival. Score. I walked into this:
It is, unfortunately, an old-school zoo. None of the animals really had enough space to be happy, and some of them were clearly messed up and pacing freakily. The babies, the birds, and the herps were all just fine, though. There was a lot to enjoy.
( Cut for many smallish photos )
