Get out!

We noticed that, once you have kids and a normal busy life, it's quite easy to do "nothing," which feels luxurious on a Saturday. Sunday is quite full, and now Michael has broken into the birthday party circuit - his 2nd invite! (Despite language barriers, Michael knows how to party, so he is quite comfortable in that setting.) Anyway, thinking we shouldn't give ourselves the out of down time during our remaining days here, we've picked up the pace. Last Thursday, we headed across the bridge for the library; on Saturday, we found the zoo.
Doing nothing Jack-style means picking up something off a shelf or the floor, such as his Christmas guitar. We interrupted his concentration to check out some new books.
Michael is perusing Arabic, but there were also English books. The whole world seems to be into Japanese manga (comics), as that collection was HUGE.
By the way, I was struck at how much cachet things Japanese still have here and in Paris, as evidenced by the new Palais de Tokyo, a snazzy contemporary art museum - the only one in Paris open 'til midnight. The modern discovery of Japan as an aesthetic/design utopia dates to artists, like Monet and Van Gogh, who both had huge woodblock print collections and built private gardens. VG wrote his brother about the South of France, where he had discovered "Japan." Through the world expos, American architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright and the Greene brothers, studied certain forms of Japanese residential and temple architecture. And in the 19th century, cities around the world, like DC, began landscaping their public spaces with cherry trees. While in LA, we enjoyed touring Pasadena's Gamble House, which is marked by sword, scroll, and shrine motifs. So, I guess Japan meant "cool," sort of the way Tokyo - via anime - has established a new global currency.

On to the zoo.
Jack and Michael hit the playground. Boys like hamsters.
The zoo was actually very very low key and obviously low budget. A llama here, a wolf there, turn the corner and a lion and tiger and you're ready for lunch. We were impressed at how CLOSE you can get to these creatures, only separated by chain link and a little moat. As with virtually every other experience though, the Servion Zoo maintained a decent restaurant.