the No.1 zoo in Japan, I say at least to me

It is because unlike the Ueno Zoo which is most popular,

Asahiyama is a more natural place or at least that's what it's famous for

Here's the panphlet for the Asahiyama Zoo

They're celebrating their 50th aniversary opened in 1967

and the first 20 years of the zoo were not very successful

The zoo was a big failure in fact I think it was

in the 1990's in an orangutan died from disease

and they closed the park down

and then it was in 1997 that they started renovating and changed

the way that the zoo worked

they made more natural habitats

made the zoo

better ,a lot better

and I'll explain more about that

as we continue with this livestream tour of the Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa

this is the northernmost city in Hokkaido

and if you've following my hitchhiking tour for the last five weeks, of this far away my goal, quite exited about that

so when I knew that I was going to be in Asahikawa

and just really close to the zoo I had to come today and livestream this

so I'm going to be showing you some of the animals around here

I'll start off by showing you a map of the area

and take you on a tour of this really cool zoo

I've been walking for about 30 minutes trying to find places to take you

before starting the livestream it's quite exiting

here is a veiw from Zoo

It's on the top of a mountain

and in the distance you can see some of the white caps still on the mountains

it's a warm day today but

overall in April Hokkaido is pretty chilly

so this is naturally a beautiful natural basis, in fact

I'm going to be camping in central Asahikawa tonight

next to the train station

because there's a campground

next to the station. An actual campground

three minutes away from the exit of the station

which anybody can camp in for free

that's Asahikawa that's their image as one of the most natural cities in Japan

here's a map of the animal exibit in this area of the park

It's a big park there's the main gate

that's we come in

you pass the aviary

there's a penguin aquarium which is very famous

we're going to take a look at that in about 20 minutes

there's also a polar bear aquatic park

which is quite famous

then a lot of native animals to Hokkaido

there's the Orangutan, chimpanzee forest and the monkey forest

I'm attracted to the monkeys, the orangutans here's the primates because

they're like part of our family as humans right

so, we're going to see them first

you can get a look at their enclosure

there's a lot of green in the park

not just for the animals but for the humans, so

I'm pretty relaxed

really fresh air

that's a big difference between here and Ueno

for those living in Japan there's also a map in Japanese

I do like here the open-air stage

and we'll have a quick look around that

It's pretty exiting!

alright, let's look

first and

I'm going to take you first over right here

so let me tell you what these primates are here

"Capibara"

Capibara from northern South America

and their cage is a lot more natural than the bear Park

that you saw a few days ago on the Only in Japan, GO channel

these guys aren't quite active

maybe because it's really really hot here

It's in the sunny day, it's approximately 20 degrees Celsius

which is pretty hot for Northern Hokkaido

if you look up you'll see these guys climbing

they're entertainers

Do it, do it! That's awesome

Yes, I wish I had that kind of ability

these guys are in a really nice job

and I guess you'd call it an entrance

but unlike a lot of zoos that I've seen that it's very very clean and

there's no smell at all very natural

this is your keeper that comes out every now and then I've seen

Let's walk on over to another primate

you can see the one I don't know by calling it a cage as much as a jungly gym

so those joining in this the Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa City, Japan's northernmost city

a long way from Tokyo

like the posing for photo

you see them, there they are

this is the new area

These are native of

Central Africa

all right, group hug

If you have to look around to find them, you can see up there on the platform

there's a guy chilling up there

I'm only here because the Kickstarter campaign was so successful that I made a stretch goal

to continue the trip through Hokkaido

I didn't want ot travel in the middle of the Japanese holiday

this is the middle of Golden Week which runs from about April 20th to May 6th, so

may set May 8th is Monday

so that's when it ends technically but the 7th

These are the Gibbon

so they have a little tourism

Encasement I guess like a little glass peeking

so they're really lookig out at us

see to the glass room here

wow there's a deer in the

maybe they're not here right now. sometimes the take a break and go inside

I'm going to tell you a little bit more about the concept of this zoo

when we go down to the penguin exhibit

but one thing that I like about this they don't force the animals

to do anything that they don't want to do

basically there's name of the concept whick I'll introduce you to

and that concept is what has made this - a world famous park

you can see in this little window they hang out in the window

mom up there

everybody wants to get a photo

either stupid this tube of playing up there

this is awesome

don't fall how do they not falling

we should do that in elementary school

on the jungle on the monkey bars we call them

we wrestle and try to get the other kid to fall off of the monkey bars

so this is the same thing, this is like elementary school for me back again but

I don't know if we want them to fall, do we, that's pretty high

It's a real battle

None of the other people are watching this, this is where the action is

look at

look is doing a groin shot right now

they fight dirty

wow, wow, we got a winner

wait not be going to give up that easy

this is kind of fun to watch

down there on the ground

you can see our little deer

so they put some of the animalas together that

are natural in the Gibbon, the monkey's habitat

to make it seem more real

so the animals are interacting with other animals

this cage

pretty interesting

now about five minutes ago they were over here

you see this in the globe

It's pretty much

a monkey it's pretty much a jungle gym for the orangutans

they have another cage here and how do they get from this cage to this to this cage you asked

over here how do they get there well

If you look up

the two are connected

by a bar

and the orangutan but potentially could fall

they could potentially fall onto the crowd below

I don't think that's happened though

I don't think they've ever fallen behind

they have the freedom to go from one cage to the next

via this bar in the sky

so a kind of cool that way

they're over there resting

the way it's gotten quite hot here in the sun

they're over there

there they are

I guess they're doing laundry or something

I don't know by they do what they want to do

and that's what we'll come back here later

so the animals here they do what they want to do

they do it when they want to do it

and it ceates happier animals and a happier experience for the humans

so the orangutan which they sort of put on a show in their monkey bar thing in a jungle gym

so we'll come I'm going to head now over to the most famous exhibit the penguins

there's a walk through that you can walk through the penguin's habitat

there's usually a small line and I was thinking maybe I would explain a little bit more about this park to you in line

Here is a bird habitat

they were walking blocking paths

they put in a lot of trees, a lot of local

this is not inside cage here

but if you see here

they've let a lot of the natural stuff and in their habitat and

they didn't make they made the poles look more natural by painting them dark

so it looks more like forest in here this is the Hokkaido animal house

I'm an owl

that's a pretty big owl actually

Alright let's go to the Penguins

one reason I think that the signal is pretty good is up there you see a ton of cell phone towers

making sure theat every single tourist has really good reception

so there's a shortcut

this is the shortcut to the other side and I walked through here before

but what I liked about this is why I'm coming through this way is because

you can see the natural habitat for the humans

this is really in a mountain and they didn't change the environment of it too much

and here from this point you get a really good view of the entire park

this is the middle of, well, the start of the Japanese spring holiday and

usually there aren't that many people I'd say

this is pretty heavy for the zoo

In the center is another owl cage

It's a beautiful park and the air coming through is really good

It's all that air coming this way from the mountains in the distance

that's the biggest diffence to me

If I compare this to Ueno Zoo

Ueno Zoo you get all the city air

It doesn't feel like a natural habitat for the animals

although it's very nice zoo, it's just not same

this zoo is a reason why

the only reason it doesn't have more people than Ueno

because Ueno Zoo is in the center of Tokyo

That's the only reason. This one is not as not as big

all right. Let's go down to the penguins

Okay, right there is a wolf museum

These are snow owls

so the birdcage that we were looking at before snow owls

Yeah just one of them but he doesn't really seem to want to get attention that's okay

looking away

guess snow owl are made famous from Harry Potter movies

all right, come on a beautiful day, this is today

this is the, fierce animals house

I like when they chose that word instead of you know

tame or lame. They picked fierce

So,

Here stand more house

some Hokkaido bears and these Hokkaido bears are pretty massive

unlike the bear museum and nobody bets to the habitat here is much much better

I can smell the wood chips. the freshness they smell like fresh-cut wood chips

no flash ot startle the bear like that

they put in some really fun lookout points for the humans

and then I'm inside of enclosure

underground on the water level

all right, let's go

I'm making my way to the Penguins

so if you're

hanging in there for that it's coming

we're still in Japan

psychedelic flying to you keep you distance from tiger flight

makes sence

I guess apparently they have a problem

gas or something

that's good let's go take a quick look at the Tigers

I love to sleep it together

Tigers in love

are going to sleep in together

why don't they go in the shade why are they in the sun