Valentine's Day

In Japan the tradition of Valentine's Day is a lot different than in the US. Here girls will get their crushes/boyfriend/husband etc. chocolate and that is it. If the boys who received chocolate like the girls in return they will give them chocolate back during another holiday that is exactly a month later in March. If they do not like them back then they will give the girl and cookie. There is not a big rush of making a reservation at a nice restaurant, flowers, presents, cards etc.like there is in the US. Don't get me wrong, I love Valentine's Day the way its done in the US but we did it low key this year. Unfortunately Brad and I weren't able to sneak away to get flowers/chocolate so we treated ourselves to a day at the zoo and went out to dinner instead.

Happy "St. Valentine's Day to you". These signs as well as a lot of chocolate were all over the malls and train stations.

A red panda. Unfortunately the Giant Panda Ling Ling, died a little a while ago. 

Have you ever seen a Asiatic lion before?

A Sumatran tiger

This funny gorilla kept the burlap sack on its head the entire time they we were watching them. 

We caught the sea lions at lunch time. 

It was fun seeing some different kinds of animals that you don't see back home. It was kind of sad though because the zoo's biggest attractions was the giant panda and there isn't even a panda at the zoo anymore. The zoo still has a giant stuffed panda that you can take pictures with and plenty of panda souvenirs though... Anyway, we had fun on our little outing.