Cuddly wins the day

On Sunday I skipped lunch and headed up to the Nogeyama Zoo in Yokohama. Like the Ueno Park zoo in Tokyo, this is a small zoo easily seeable in an hour and a half or so. Also like Ueno, this is an older zoo, so not too many natural enclosures.

One exception to that was the Red Panda exhibit. Placed near the front of the zoo, the two little guys I saw had ramped up their cuteness factor to nearly unbearable levels. The picture below fails to capture the excited cries of small children as this lovable creature trotted around his little forest.



Another reason to skip lunch: tonight (Sunday) was the day of the conference banquet. Set on board a cruise ship, we had nine courses of Japanese dishes. I don't think the vegetarian I dined with enjoyed it as much as the rest of my table, but for my part it was a great meal.