They say it's all happening at the zoo....

I went to the Kumamoto Zoo this weekend. I met a chimpanzee. This was the first time in my life that I met a chimpanzee. I also met other animals.

The animals were mostly in pretty sad shape, however the diversity and depth of the zoo, which only cost about $3 to get in, was pretty impressive. Some animals managed to be happy despite the poor housing and less than ideal weather. One of the chimps I met was very interested in hanging out with me. Instead of throwing his feces at me or biting off my thumb (like other chimapanzees have been known to do) this chimp displayed his teeth by spreading out his lips in a sort of absurd smile and then nodded hysterically every time I answered a question, even the question "can you shake your head?" (which he didn't seem to be able to do despite my modeling the action for him). He had the most bizarre backside (as chimps tend to have); next time I'll get a picture of it for you all to admire.

There were many monkeys there. It was my second time seeing primates other than humans. As some of you may know my senior thesis in college was, in part, an exploration of the effect that the learning of evolution had on Kafka's thought. Monkeys in particular fascinated the young writer enough that he devoted one entire story to a chimp. I must say they fascinate me too. Never before was I exposed to so much of my ancient "ancestral, genetic cousins." They can teach us a thing or two about ourselves (and some not-to-pretty things they can be indeed; but I'd rather be aware than ignorant, eh).Of course there were more than monkeys there. There were elephants, giraffes, a two-humped camel, a jaguar, a lion, some seriously disturbed bears (inculding a Polar), many birds, and.... rhinos and hippos, and many more. I felt like one of the hundreds of nursery school kids wandering around and looking at all of the special, if severly depressed, animals.