Tokushima Zoo is really quite close to Kamiyama.  If you take route 438 then turn off on to route 18 you can take a tiny little road through the forests and hills and reappear on 209, just next to the zoo.  Not sure about zoos as entertainment myself, but it’s very convenient if you have a little son you need to occupy.

But, it was a mistake to go to the zoo in summer because it was so hot and tiring.  All the animals looked listless and bothered.  I’m not sure if this was due to being in captivity or the awful weather.  Probably a little bit of both.  The herbivorous animals always look happy in zoos; the carnivores always look crazy.  There’s something about being a predator that requires extra cerebral calculations and awareness and it’s incredibly difficult to provide this in an enclosure.  Live food would be helpful but it’s hardly humane is it?  Watching the lone wolf hobble over to the pile of cut meat and sausages just didn’t feel nice.  Not sure how my son felt about the experience.  He always seemed deep in thought, alert.  I guess he enjoyed seeing real, live animals but perhaps he could tell that there was something missing..

I took a movie of a chimpanzee with a grey beard pushing a huge plastic box around his tank.  Immediately after that he threw himself at me in a rage and hammered his fists on the glass.  It was terrifying.  If there hadn’t been toughened glass between us he would have ripped my arms off and stuffed me up my own arse.  But can you blame him?

Anyway, after that experience I had to go and stare at a sloth and calm down.

Have you ever seen an elephants sole?