Time for Day 2 of the zemi class camp!

So day 2, well, it’s our only full day so we had to study. Only in the morning though, and for two hours. I think after day 1, no one had much energy or motivation to study. But, we all buckled down and did our best to study. Eventually though, we were released and went for lunch.

For some reason, we went to have lunch at APU (Asia-Pacific University). It’s located in a really ulu place, up in the mountains. For some reason, my teacher was under the impression that I have lots of friends in APU – it’s the opposite, really. Most of my friends are in public universities.

Grabbed a shot of the school from a car

The APU campus reminds me a lot of Ito campus – New buildings, extremely inconvenient location. And the food was basically very similar to Kyudai. (I believe the menu was almost all the same, though I did see pineapple)

The cafeteria was huge though!

After lunch, we went to the safari park, which was extremely near by. You know, I didn’t expect Beppu to be so cold, since we are still technically in summer. But it was cold. Take a look at the mist surrounding the bus:

It’s a car park behind, but you can’t see the cars

The safari was way more fun than I expected. Due to certain circumstances, my senpai’s and I ended up with one extra box (while the rest sitting on the other side had one box too little… oops!). It meant that we could feed the animals loads!

So, commencing animal picture spam!

The first up were the goats! I believe we fed them food pellets, and all of us were trying to feed the tiny, cute goat. But, the biggest goat always butted in and took the food. I think my senpai’s made more noise than me, telling the bigger goat to go away.

Not all the animals could be fed though. Apart from the uninterested ones, there were a few, like the cheetahs and hyenas, who were left alone. We sort of us drove through their areas very slowly.

ROAR

I was actually quite surprised that it was ok to feed the lions.

Story time! When I told my mom that there were lions in the safari park, her first response was “You didn’t try to do that thing you did last time, right?”

You see, when I was a little girl in England, we went to a safari park. I actually remember that, although I remember the handle that lowers the window more than anything. But I do remember opening a door. And according to my mother, that would be during the lion zone, AND the lion actually got up and made his way to us.

No wonder I remember her slamming the door and us driving away so fast.

The elephants were adorable! Their trunks are way flexible.  One got its trunk stuck in the gap though, trying to get more food:

After that we also saw the giraffes, who bent down to get food from us. I believe there were gazelles or some other, smaller creature there, that we also fed.

And there were camels! For some of my senpai’s, it was their first time seeing one. I’m not sure how to reconcile that to the fact that two out of three of the senpai’s around me have been here before. But according to one, he was really hungover, and the other said that the fog was even worse that day. Or maybe they all forgot…

After we finished the tour, I really, really wanted to go see the other animals. Apparently, there was another area where you could have more close ups, like a dog salon and cat salon. All paid of course. I wasn’t really intending to pay, but I saw the one for the lion’s cub!

And now I have a photo of myself holding a lion’s cub!! I really want to share it with everyone, but it has quite a few of my classmates and seniors inside (we ended up looking like we took a family portrait), so I’m not sure if I can share it here. But yeah, trust me when I say that the lion’s cub was way, way adorable. Too cute!

It was only one and a half months, so its paws were still very soft. Each of us went “Oh!” when we felt it.

The other animals were adorable, although I can’t remember their English names.

The expression on this guy’s face:

“Say WHAAAAA?”

The last place we went was the kangaroo encounter, and thankfully, none of my friends went “boxing” with the kangaroo. I though we would be fenced off from the kangaroos, but we could actually pet them!

So fun!

After the safari park, it was basically free time. We went back, and since the teacher’s car was the first to arrive (as usual), we had quite some time. So I decided to go look for a sweet shop. You see, it was really, really cold in the safari, and one of my senpai’s lent me a shirt. So I decided to buy a small gift to show my appreciation.

I can’t believe it, but our timing was actually quite good. When we got back, senpai was at the lobby. Haha, yay. I didn’t have to go to their room (I wasn’t even sure which number it was)

Dinner was at a nearby seafood place, because most of us were sick of chicken. There were a few who went for Yakitori though:

Apparently, the place was fully booked on opening.

 I had the kaisen don, and it was fantastic! I couldn’t finish it though :/

Like the previous night, we had a nomikai after, and again, I ended up talking only to one or two people. I’m really not good with situations involving crowds, I guess.

And so ends Day 2. There’s still Day 3, but I’m also heading to Singapore and Malaysia to attended two trade fairs for research, so hopefully I manage to blog then!