Zoo

In leu of a cancelled class, I was invited to accompany the grade 1s and 2s on their field trip to the Obihiro Zoo. I'll skip a description of the sorry state of Japanese zoos and instead go right to the story: The weather was actually looking very ugly the day of, the only reason it went ahead is because the forecast for the backup day looked even worst. Drizzling rain; forbidding skies; dropping temperatures; that's what we had to work with. The kids were mostly happy to trounce around the empty park; the teachers close behind to make sure no one put there fingers where they weren't suppose to go. It was set up in a novel way with the grade 2s partnering with groups of grade 1s. Some groups managed to pick a plan and stick to it easily whereas other groups encountered a bit of drama in deciding what to see first. And no matter how many times the grade 2s were told not to run, everywhere poor grade 1s were left behind to be matched up at a later point by the teachers. Opening up a world of future disappointment, asked what animal they wanted to see the most, a common answer was the cheetah, of which the Obihiro Zoo has none. Of existing animals, most kids made a b-line for the hippos. The group I was with drew great pleasure from encouraging a sleepy polar bear into the water. The seals were also very popular due to the fact the water was very low and we could get very close to them. And, predictably, though we were at a zoo, about 20 grade 1s and 2s surrounded a tree with a lone terrified squirrel in it to their great amusement and created a highlight of the trip. For me, the petting zoo portion was most memorable; nothing was more heart-warming than watching the joy spread over the kids' faces as they discovered the world of rabbits annd guinea pigs. My smile refected in their shrieks of laughter. Everyone remained warm enough until we sat down for lunch. As soon as we stopped moving everyone got cold. To keep the children's spirits up, I never once complained about the weather (until later and only to the teachers), and led a rousing rendition of "Do the Hokey-Pokey" that even attracted the attention of the nearby giraffe and zebra. I wasn't particlarly tired until we got onto the bus and one by one the grade 1s started to fall asleep. At that point I started to feel my own fatigue. An interesting histoical note, I have been to this zoo once before in 1997 as a high school exchange student. I had completely put it out of my mind until I saw the monkey.. pit...? Kind of a sad state of affairs but re-living a zoo experience through my students I must admit I had a good time.


This elephant came over to see what all the commotion was about and stayed to watch us.