Tokyo Day 3

The weather forecast was very accurate, it was raining in Tokyo our on 3rd day of visit. Places of interest to cover for the day:

• National Museum of Nature and Science
• Ueno Zoo

We have never brought the kids to a museum before. This is the first museum they have been to. There are several museums in Tokyo. Mummy chose this particular one because of the dinosaur exhibits. Clarence has been asking to see dinosaur bones. And it is free admission for kids.

The museum is divided into 2 sections: Global Gallery and Japan Gallery. We only had time to cover the Global Gallery (6 floors of exhibits) as we need to go to the Ueno Zoo in the afternoon,
We were impressed with the exhibits. We visited Animals of the Earth, Evolution of Life-Solving the Mysteries of the Dinosaurs, Evolution of Life-From the Earth's Origin through Human Existence.
Some of the pictures we took there:

The exhibits in the museum were really an eye-opener.
Next stop: We walked over to the Ueno Zoo.

Admission is free for kids under 12 too, perhaps Singapore should do this too. We got a 20% discount for adult admission cos we were tourists. The Ueno Zoo is one of the oldest zoo in Tokyo and they are celebrating their 130yrs anniversary this year.

Our main motive for coming to this Zoo was to see the  Giant Pandas and Gorillas.

The cute Giant Pandas: (力力和真真）

Told our kids we don't need to go back to Singapore to see the Giant Pandas for the time being since they have seen the Pandas in Japan. Haha!

Next we met the mighty Gorilla (First time in our lives we see a real Gorilla)

This Gorilla was very near to us, only separated by a glass panel. Its back facing us:

The Gorilla looked bored in the enclosure. It was playing with its paws and staring at the sky. We got a shock on 2 instances:

• It got up suddenly and started hitting its hands on its chest making the "Woo Woo Woo" sound. 
• It got up suddenly and smashed its hands on the glass panel facing us.

We were fascinated by its action. Vincy was terrified of the huge black Gorilla. She refused to go near the enclosure and cried when the Gorilla did those actions. She kept asking us to leave.

The poor gal:

More animals:

First time seeing an Okabi (the first animal in the top pic, with zebra strip legs)

It was autumn in Tokyo so the Okabi, Giraffe and Hippo were put indoors with the heaters on.

After our Zoo visit, we went straight for dinner to replenish our energy after walking for the whole day.

After dinner, we made a last minute decision to go to Tokyo Tower.

As it has been raining for the whole day, the glass windows on the 150m main observatory was foggy so we couldn't see much view. Thus we didn't pay to go up to the special observatory. Ended up dressing as Santa, taking pictures in the tower.

 The large Christmas tree outside the tower:

 One last picture with Tokyo Tower before we called it a day.