Chester Zoo - soggy spectacled bear, and a glimpse of a jaguar

I went to Chester Zoo via a visit to my university city Liverpool last month, with my friends Nikki and Jay.
It was lovely to not only catch up with them, but with the zoo itself, which was the site of numerous days out and study breaks over my time there.
It's one of the country's best, in my opinion, and has an enormous variety of creatures - from a huge herd of Asian elephants, to plenty of big cats, graceful okapi and orangutans.
The weather was dreadful - intermittent rain and hail, which with bursts of sun meant a constant stripping off of layers. Despite this, we managed to see pretty much everything we wanted to - a black rhino snorting at his fence, a spectacled bear chopping an apple in a hail storm, and even a glimpse of a jaguar after a good ten minute wait at the edge of his leafy enclosure. And that's without mentioning the baby orangutan held carefully up to the glass by its mother, and the juvenile elephants who delighted the crowds by play-fighting in their pond.
The only slight let down was how cold the pub in the centre of the zoo was when we popped in for lunch - although the piping hot veggie lasagne made up for this!