Angela's 3rd birthday today, as well as a fairly full schedule. We set out at 9am to go to Yokohama Zoo, known as "Zoorasia". It was a fair distance out of central Yokohama. Firstly by train to one of the outer stations, and then we changed to the bus for the remaining 20 minute ride out to the zoo. The zoo is in a very green area surrounded by bushland, which is why it was a decent trek out of town. We paid our small fee to get in, and as far as attractions go in Japan, this place was deserted. Basically there was one massive school group moving through the park, and apart from those kids I would estimate that we only saw about 20 other adults throughout our couple of hours at the park. This was a shock after battling insanely crowded train stations, and the insanity of Universal Studios only a few days ago. Another thing that Yokohama seems to have that no other Japanese city seems to have, which is magnificent, is breeze. Today was still quite hot, but it is amazing what a different a small breeze makes. Old people were no longer dieing in the street, and passing birds were no longer bursting into flames. The first enclosure we came to contained a Japanese guy riding an Indian elephant. As far as elephants go, it was a pretty nice example, but I'm still not sure why the Japanese guy was on top of him. The elephant didnt seem to care though, so we decided to move on. There were a few other smaller elephants over to the side of the enclosure, but these ones didn't come with Japanese guys attached. A few monkey pens followed. Nice monkeys, although most of them just looked to damn hot to move. I say "most" because there were two monkeys who decided fighting would be a good idea. The next couple of exhibits at the zoo were a little disheartening. I began to wonder whether humans really were the most intelligent species, because the animals in these exhibits new to stay out of the damn sun, unlike us. There were animals such as Japanese black bears, lions and several types of jungle cats that we had to use our imaginations to enjoy, because they were probably curled up in their air conditioned pens in the back of their enclosures staying out of the heat. Onwards, through the bird exhibits, which, lets be honest, nobody really cares about. Yep, great. Birds. Moving right along. There were a couple of animals I'd never seen before, such as a "bush dog" which ran around in a pack and looked like a cross between a dog and a pig. These kept the girls amused for quite some time, and were definitely a favourite with the kids. It was at this point I realised that one of my camera batteries was a dud. I gave the battery a full charge overnight, and I had taken only 60 or so shots, and I was getting a low battery light. Fantastic. A few more shots and it was done. With the spare batteries sitting back in the room, we pulled dad's camera out which we had bought with us on the trip as a spare, for just such an occasion. Onwards, to the Arctic Circle region, which I found the most interesting area of the park. This area contained an excellent above and below water viewing of penguines, seals, and a clearly insane polar bear. The penguines were very good fun, especially for the girls, because they would swim over and play with anyone standing near the glass in the underwater viewing section. The seal too, was having a play around with the people viewing from the other side of the glass. The polar bear on the other hand, had clearly been couped up in his pen for too long. For the entire time we watched him, he simply did laps, literally, in his pool. He would push off on one side of the pool, reach the wall on the other side, turn over onto his back and push off again, to end up exactly where he started. He would then turn around and repeat the process, identically. We were at his pen for 15 minutes or more and he was still doing this when we left. After that exhibit, to be honest we were a little sick of it. There was an "oceania grassland" section which contained such exotic species as Kangaroos and Emus, so needless to say we didnt even slow down at these pens. These were, however, the most crowded exhibits of the whole park. The Amazon exhibit was quite good. Ocelots and Spectacled bears had the girls interested. After that though, there is not a lot to report. There is one animal called an Okapi, which seems to have the head of an anteater, the upper body of a horse and the legs and back end of a zebra. This animal seems to be the mascot of the park, and had a fair crowd around it, but I couldnt see the attraction. The only other animal worth mentioning is the Mongolian Wild Ass, but only because I like the name. The actual animal is just a donkey. From there we made our way to the exit. We could have taken several of the nature walks, such as the rainforest walk, which would probably have been very nice, because the zoo was set in a very lush green area, but I wasnt adding another hour or two onto the day just to look at trees. Our original plan was to go straight to the Landmark Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_ Landmark_Tower) in the Yokohama Bay area after we were finished at zoorasia, but seeing as the main camera had no battery, and our "spare" camera was also showing a low battery symbol, we decided to go back to the hotel for an afternoon rest, and to go to the Landmark Tower when we woke up. And I am very, very thankful that my battery died at the zoo, because the Landmark tower view at twilight, and then in the dark, is the single best city view I have ever seen. We left our hotel a little after 5pm, which got us to the Landmark Tower at about 5:50pm, as we had to battle peak our train commuters (which hasn't been as hard as I thought it was going to be to be honest). Walking out of the station, it wasnt hard to find the building. It simply dominated the skyline. Plus, there was a nice undercover travellator equipped walkway leading from the station right to the tower elevator, which made getting there very fast and simple. Into the second quickest elevator on the planet, and watched the spedometer redline at 750 meters per minute (I actually video'd the speedometer display on the way down). We got to the overservation deck on the 69th floor at about 6pm, which gave us around half an hour until sundown, which was perfect. This enabled us to get photos both in light, and after dark, which we didn't have the opportunity to do at the Umeda Sky building in Osaka. The Umeda Sky building had a better laid out viewing area, plus it enabled access to the roof to allow you to have clear, glass-free shots, but the view from the Landmark Tower was much better. We relaxed with coffees at a window-side table looking to the North-West, which would have had us looking at Mt Fuji were it not for a storm several kilometers away in that direction. After an hour, and many, many photos, we took the plumet in the elevator, which forced us to equalise our ears halfway down, and then cause our stomachs to sink as the elevator slowed to a halt. It is very, very quick. It would be a fantastic ride if it was an external glass elevator like the one in the Umeda Sky building. Down through the Landmark Plaza, the shopping centre which occupies the bottom 5 floors of the building. We had dinner, and we went to the Hard Rock Cafe so Veronica could buy 2 more shot glasses, as she did not yet have Yokohama versions. Then we came across a restaurant which ruined my whole evening. Sizzler. The very same Sizzler which used to be all over Australia, with the all-you-can-eat soup, pasta, salad and desert bar. And this one had an identical menu from what I could see. Having already had dinner, we couldn't justify eating again. I was close to giving it a go though. It was 8:30pm by that stage, so we followed our notepad of directions in reverse, and returned to the hotel, gave the girls a bath and got them ready for bed. This should be the part of the trip where I say that we are packing up and leaving Yokohama in the morning, to head to Tokyo, as this was our original plan, with the Hotel booked and everything else sorted. Whilst inputting the train station details to work how how long it would take to get from our hotel in Tokyo to Disneyland, which is where we will be spending 3 of our 4 days in Tokyo, we discovered a very interesting thing. From Yokohama station, which is 2 minutes walk from the Hotel I am sitting in now, Disneyland is a 40 minute train ride, with a single change of trains at Tokyo station. From the hotel we had booked in Tokyo, Disneyland was a 45 minute train ride, which had between 4 and 6 changes of train, depending on which route you chose to take. So the 45 minutes would easily blow out to over an hour by the time you finished running between train platforms in the Tokyo peak hour crush. The reason the Yokohama trip is so quick is that the first journey to Tokyo station is via Shinkansen. So basically we performed some last minute surgery to the itinerary. We booked 4 more nights in the hotel we are in now, which hopefully means we can keep the same room and not have to pack up our bags in the morning. Then on the 5th night, because this hotel did not have any vacancies, we have booked into central Kawasaki, which from looking at the maps is halfway between Tokyo and Yokohama (which is only separated by 18 minutes on the Shinkansen anyway). So in short we aren't staying a single night in Tokyo, which suits me fine. We might take a trip on Saturday to check out the city, but I'm more than happy to stay elsewhere, especially since "elsewhere" actually makes travelling quicker and easier than staying in Tokyo itself. Also, can you guess which restaurant we'll be going to for lunch tomorrow?