Me and the guanaco, we're probably both a bit bemused...

So, here I am at the other part of Berlin Zoo, Tierpark Berlin, the former East Berlin Zoo. It is slightly unusual, in that there is a cemetery tucked away in the woods, and an anti-fascism memorial faces one of the exhibits. It also has just a hint of communism, in that the animals are scattered about with long walks between them, as if to give the impression that there is more here to see than there actually is. It is very peaceful though.

The other thing about the zoo, on a more positive note, is that the enclosures are rather bigger. Yes, they probably could be bigger, but by the standards of most zoos, they're still pretty impressive.

The other thing about the Tierpark is that it doesn't seem very commercial. Unlike Zoo Berlin's main site, there aren't many opportunities to buy junk food, or plush toys, or anything really. There doesn't appear to be an opportunity to watch various exciting animals being fed. It's almost as though someone has said, "Alright, we'll round up some animals in one place and people can look at them if they want. Just don't ask us to get involved beyond that.".

Funnily enough, the guanaco across from where I'm sitting appears to be deep in thought too. At least it doesn't have a plane to catch later...

The pandas of Schonbrunn

Not long after the pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo, Ros went to see them with her sister. It's a long way to Edinburgh from mid-Suffolk, but Ros was really keen, having never seen a panda up close before. Sadly, her effort was in vain, as one of the pandas was off display through ill health, and the other was on a high platform, meaning that you could only see its shoulder and one ear.

Yang Yang, a very unusual panda indeed

I had, in doing my pre-trip research, realised that the zoo at Schonbrunn, in Vienna's western suburbs, apart from being the oldest zoo in the world (opened as an imperial menagerie in 1752), has pandas, and so I decided that Ros should get another opportunity to see her panda. And so, with the business part of our trip over, we set off under grey skies to see them.

Tiergarten Schönbrunn, to give it its proper name, is a surprisingly nice zoo given the limitations of space, with decent sized enclosures and seemingly happy animals. And, it feels Viennese in terms of its architecture and layout. But our priority was, of course, pandas, and we headed straight to them.

Mother and son

The pandas have been there now for more than a decade, so perhaps the excitement that Edinburgh has experienced has worn off a little, but for those starved of pandas, we were quite excited. And we weren't disappointed...

Young Fu Bao has mastered climbing already

For the zoo is only one of four zoos in Europe that have pandas, Long Hui, who is male, and Yang Yang, the female, and the only one of the four which has successfully bred naturally. Indeed, they've produced three cubs, Fu Long and Fu Hu, who now live in China. Apparently, the deal is that if cubs are produced, China gets them after two years.

Best of all, on 14 August last year, young Fu Bao was born, which meant that he was still there!

Ros was, naturally, delighted, although she now wants to see them in China, something that I can't really object to. Now, all I need to do is work out when, and how, we might get to Chengdu...

My day as a zookeeper - O is for Otter, R is for Red River Hog

I only got a relatively fleeting look at the smooth-coated otters at Otter Creek, as time was short, and they can't entirely be trusted with non-keepers, playful little scamps that they are, but there was time to find out a bit about them.

I got rather more time with the red river hogs though. They have the misfortune to be at a relatively remote corner of the zoo, and don't get as many visitors as, say, the meerkats. I like them though, and got to get fairly close to them.

Not happy, not happy at all...

My job was to feed them an assortment of apples, carrots, broccoli and other healthy stuff. The hitherto dominant male wasn't entirely happy, having been recently castrated to prevent the group from getting any larger, but he was still content to eat apples from my hand.

He couldn't have everything though, so I was obliged to give the fruit and vegetables some air. The downside of this was that some of the hogs were in receipt of glancing blows to the head from low-flying fruit. They seemed to take it in good spirit though.

And that left just one more animal, also beginning with R...

My day as a zookeeper: M is for Meerkat

The country's most popular animal, entirely down, it seems, to the advertising genius employed by a comparison website was on my list of animals to see. What I hadn't expected was that I would be part of the exhibit...

The Suricata Sands exhibit is, naturally, one of the most visited attractions at Colchester Zoo, and I was to go and find out about what they eat, and how they are looked after.

Posing for the camera...

First, I was admitted into the enclosure to take a closer look, and to be introduced to the 'mob' and their environment. Naturally, as burrowing animals, the enclosure is, effectively, a concrete bowl filled with suitable soil, studded with rocks and logs, some hollow, for them to dig under, run through or stand on.

They all have names, naturally, and the group is led by the dominant female, who is usually pregnant. They're also incredibly inquisitive, and my presence didn't appear to bother them at all. It did, however, appear to confuse some of the visitors, who wondered what I was doing there.

We then returned to the inner sanctum, where it was time for feeding and simultaneous enrichment. My job was to pour mealworms and slices of banana into paper bags, scrunch them up into balls, and throw them into as many parts of the enclosure as possible. It seems that I'm quite good at it, although the meerkats were just as good, if not better, at finding them, shredding them and eating the contents.

And yes, they are just as cute in the flesh as they appear from television and adverts...

My day as a zookeeper: L is for Leopard and Lion

Zoos are not, apparently, entirely about cute furry creatures that you can stroke. And, although I have been a servant to cats in the past - you really don't own cats, they employ you - there is a difference between cats that can scar, and cats that can kill.

See, I can make beds if I have the right motivation...

Despite the recent unfortunate incident when a keeper was mauled to death, my next task was to enter the lion enclosure to do some tidying. Their indoor enclosure needs to be cleaned regularly, the windows washed from the inside, the floor swept and hosed down, and the bed changed. So, having made absolutely sure that the big cats were securely outside, I was handed a large broom and got on with my work.

This must have come as something of a surprise to those zoo visitors walking past, as I wasn't in uniform, but I set to work with gusto, bagging the used straw, sweeping the floor and hosing it down very thoroughly. It isn't glamorous, and is a reminder that zookeepers work very hard indeed, doing an array of hard, quite boring jobs behind the scenes.

I was to get rather closer to the other cat, an Amur Leopard, as I was due to work with it. Enrichment is a key part of the zoo routine. Animals can easily become bored in captivity, and encouraging them to act as they might in the wild is key in avoiding the sort of psychological trauma that zoo animals suffered from in the past.

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty...

I was to work on the cat's reactions, armed only with two sticks, one with a ball on the end, the other with meat. The leopard came to the meshed window, and I tapped on a part of it with one stick. If she followed the stick, I was allowed to give her some horsemeat as a reward.

Getting too close to the window comes highly unrecommended, but she is astonishingly attractive. And, without zoos, these very rare creatures would be even rarer. It is a consolation, as even a zoo fan like myself understands and accepts that life as a zoo exhibit for a creature as large as this is not ideal. However, as lifeboats for rare species, I do believe that zoos - especially well-run ones - play a vital role.

Next, M, which is for insanely cute...

My day as a zookeeper: L is for Lemur, amongst other things

One of the greatest things about Colchester Zoo is their new lemur exhibit, and as I'm a huge lemur fan from my childhood days watching 'Animal Magic', I wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to spend some quality time with them.

My new best friend. He only loves me for my raisins...

I had already met the two red-ruffed lemurs, stroked their fur and made a fuss of them, and discovered that their snouts are like the softest leather. They're patient little fellows too, although they're a bit timid if you rush at them. Luckily, my years of experience of cats has taught me that you need to approach them slowly, so that they can see you, and I was tolerated sufficiently to get close.

But the highlight was my visit to the Lost Madagascar exhibit. My job was to sit on a rock in the exhibit, armed only with a handful of raisins, and deal with the ring-tailed lemurs. It appears that raisins are a huge treat for lemurs, and that they are only fed to them once a week, which meant that, at the first scent of raisins, I was mobbed by the entire troop, babies and all.

I can assure you that they are very persistent, but I did try to make sure that everybody got a treat, and the zoo visitors on the walkway through the exhibit did get to see what it is like to be covered in lemurs. Luckily, I'm a fairly solid citizen these days, so I was able to remain stable and focussed.

All I want now is a chance to travel to Madagascar, to visit the lemurs in their natural environment. I'll need to persuade Ros, methinks...

There are other animals beginning with L. I wasn't allowed to interact with them directly, for reasons that will become clear soon...

My day as a zookeeper: A is for Aardvark

When I discovered that I had been given a 'Keeper for a Day' experience for Christmas, I was presented with a dilemma. Which of the three programmes should I choose? Scheme A had tigers, giant anteaters and inferior African elephants - clearly second best to placid, patient Indian elephants. But I'm not fussed about sun bears and wolves, so I rejected that. Scheme C had penguins and sea lions, but also had chimpanzees, and I've never really been keen on them. And so, it was Scheme B...

And so, bright and early this morning, I left our cottage in the mid-Suffolk countryside and headed for Colchester, one of the country's top zoos, for my day as a zookeeper... But, rather than retell the day in chronological order, I'll tell of my day in alphabetical order.

And here are my new friends, photographed by me inside their enclosure. Adela, the male, is the one lying on his back with his stomach in the air. So placid are they that he was quite content for me to rub his tummy, examine his claws (much bigger than you might think) and rub his ears.

And why let sleeping aardvarks lie?

Aardvarks grow to full size pretty quickly, and Zafira, the middle one in the picture, is only sixteen months old. She decided that my finger might be worth sucking in case it might produce milk (it doesn't, I'm afraid) but took a firm grasp with her tongue. The aardvark snout is surprisingly soft though...

However, there are more aardvarks, thanks to Adela and his partner Oq. Colchester Zoo has the most successful breeding program for aardvarks in the country and, indeed, worldwide, and Oq was in the birthing chamber with the latest addition, still to be named or, for that matter, sexed. I was taken behind the scenes to meet the baby and Oq, as baby aardvarks are quite vulnerable until they've put on a bit of weight. It already weighs over 5 kg, so the keepers hope that it can be introduced to the family group fairly soon.

A baby aardvark at the end of a hard day growing

Curiously, aardvarks don't seem to be very popular with the zoo-going public, which is odd, because you don't often see them in zoos, and whilst even their mothers would struggle to describe them as pretty, they do have a certain charm. I guess the fact that they're nocturnal, rather dull in colour and lacking in excitement, may be the cause, but I rather fell under their spell today. And I dare anyone not to want to pick up a baby aardvark...

Tomorrow, something beginning with B, and something beginning with G...

Me, my friends and I on happiness

One of the problems with travelling alone is that it can be a bit isolating. I have to admit that the ability to turn to someone you care about and say, "isn't that X?", is an important one. And so, gentle reader, you'll have to stand in today.

Today, I thought that I would go to the zoo, here in Seoul. I'm rather fond of zoos, as I'm rather fond of animals. And whilst it was warm (about 29 degrees), it seemed like a good idea (for reference, I visited the zoo in Louisville, Kentucky on a day when it was minus 18 degrees celsius so my dedication is unquestionable).

What I didn't expect was that the zoo at Seoul Grand Park is rather "audience participation" in nature. The first picture is of my new friend, whose name I can't pronounce (it's Korean). He appeared unexpectedly with his keeper and, given that I'd gone all the way to malayan Borneo to see his relatives in the wild, how could I resist? As a cat owner, I know that the best way to make friends with an animal is to offer a hand very slowly so that the animal can respond. My new friend reached out, and held my hand, and then stroked my fur. So I stroked his and we spent a few moments bonding. Orangutans are such gentle creatures and it saddens me that their prospects in the wild are, frankly, rather grim. They have fingernails and long, delicate fingers and it was one of the most fun things I have done in many years.

I then went on to do something that I might never have done in the past. My next friend is an albino Burmese python, and I'd like to thank the keeper who kindly asked me if I had a camera so that he could take this shot. Isn't he cute?

Next, I found myself in a queue, being passed a plastic glove and, eventually, a whole fish (quite an attractive one, as a matter of fact), which I was encouraged to toss to a waiting sealion. Now, of course, I'm an expert in this particular art, knowing that you must toss the fish head first, as it is easier to swallow that way. Naturally, I spotted my sealion and tossed the fish straight down her throat. Gooooaaaaallll, Valladares!

Finally, I found myself at the elk enclosure, and encountered a friendly creature. It would seem that, having passed the giraffe taste test, elks find me quite palatable too, as my hand was thoroughly tasted by my elk friend, much to the amusement of the watching Koreans.

Being a foreigner in Korea is a bit like being a zoo exhibit. Small children wave and smile at you (and of course, I smile and wave back), and school children try to test their English out on you. Years of experience in India make it rather easier for me but I could imagine it being a bit daunting for a first time visitor.

And so, back to my hotel room, which has a computer in it, thus allowing me to post these pictures.