Zao Fox Village

1/14/17
Like my life thus far I don’t give myself enough time to relax, instead I run, run, run to the next place. This week it was to Zao Fox Village in Zao, Miyagi. I stayed the night before with a friend in Fukushima City, and the next morning a group of us drove to Zao. It wasn’t too long. About 1.5-2 hour drive from Fukushima City.

There was a lot of snow on the ground in both Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures. Lovely.
When we arrived to the fox village, our first sights were of foxes in cages. I had heard that they weren’t in tiny cages, so it took me by surprise and I was a bit distressed.

A few were on leashes attatched to little dog houses.

A few were in bigger pens with other foxes. None of the foxes here seemed very happy. We walked around a bit looking at the foxes. There were other animals in there other than foxes. They looked warm despite the cold.

One of my favorite things about this place were all the Engrish on the signs.

... What fireplace?

It was at that point we saw the big fox area. It was a large area with room to run and some structures meant for play inside. There were maybe 100 foxes in this area. They played and yipped at each other. They also fought. We witnessed a few foxes fighting viciously while we were there. It was quite sad.

This one was nagging the other like a bad girlfriend.

These ones were talking to each other as well.

There is also a large building in the center of the area where you go inside and throw fox treats down to the foxes below. That was pretty fun.

While we were there the wind was intermittently blowing all the snow in the trees down on us. It wasn’t snowing very hard, but when the wind blew the snow from the trees, it was so thick you couldn’t see twenty feet from you. It was amazing!

Sadly the wind was so strong and the cold bit so much, one of the girls with us forgot to bring gloves, so we passed my gloves back and forth every five to ten minutes or so, to keep our hands warm. But it was really painful.

I took this photo on the feeding platform, I think it turned out really well.

While in this area walking among the foxes, you were often within arm’s reach of them, but there are signs everywhere telling you not to touch them as they will most likely bite you.

 "Dis fox gon' bite yo ass!"

One thing I noticed about the Fox village was that a lot of the foxes in the big play area were wounded in some way. A few had large chunks missing from them. One had most of his side/back missing and one had a large chunk missing from his neck. We passed one that had only three legs.

While in the big pen you can look to an area about fifty feet away that houses dozens and dozens of wounded foxes in cages. This place was labeled the “Hospital.”

This made me realize that there are too many foxes in this pen, and that they fight too much. I think this problem would be greatly reduced if they cut the number of foxes they kept together in half.

After we went inside the gift shop to warm up a bit. Even with passing the gloves back and forth our fingers were frozen, it took about ten minutes of holding them in front of the heater to get them feeling back to normal.

After that we decided to pay the extra money to hold a fox. They made us wear a bright yellow jacket while holding the foxes. These foxes were timid and didn’t mind being held by people.

I was surprised at how coarse their fur was, but they were still pretty cuddly. I would compare it to a wire-haired dog.

After the Fox Village, we walked around Sendai for a bit and got something to eat. While we were there we saw a festival going on. Many men were wearing traditional white clothes. These clothes are often worn during festivals. In this case, I believe the festival has something to do with manliness and enduring the cold weather while wearing very little. But I am not totally sure. Either way the men were walking through the city holding bells. It was quite a sight to behold!

After that we all piled in the car and drove back to Fukushima City for a nabe party! Nabe is a type of Japanese soup where you boil a bunch of vegetables and meat in a pot and then transfer the food from the pot to a plate. It is quite delicious. It often has lettuce, potatoes, carrots, various mushrooms and usually one or two types of meat.

After eating nabe we pulled out the computer and picked karaoke songs on Youtube. We sat in Felipe’s living room and sang karaoke for a few hours. It was so much fun!