Must Touch All the Animals

 After the Kangaroos, the kids were a little disappointed that they could not go inside any of the other animal habitats.  Even more discouraging is that the little squirrel monkeys were completely inaccessible, as were the red pandas.  The giraffes refused to come over to see us.  So there was no more petting of animals for a bit.

However, we saw a sign that said "Elephant Contact".  That sounded promising.  But there was no one there, so we thought we'd missed whatever time you could do whatever it was.  Suddenly, a man hopped over the fence and waved the elephant over.  He had the elephant put his trunk through the bars of the fence and the kids got to pet it. The man tossed food into the elephant's mouth.  All seemed satisfied with the "contact".

Next door to the elephant was a Jersey Bull.  He was quite large!  And he was delighted to accept food donations of grass plucked outside his reach.  The kids were thrilled to get to feed and touch it, so it was a positive interaction for everyone.

I think the red pandas are so cool!  They look like a cross between a raccoon and a fox.

The very aloof giraffes. 

Not only did they not come over to say hello, they retreated to the other side of their enclosure. Probably wise of them. 

I found the signs to be less than helpful. 

Everyone wanted to touch the elephant trunk. 

The elephant was very sweet.  And the kids were pretty impressed. 

The bull was also very sweet. 

Joshua wanted to pet it but was a little intimidated by the sheer size. 

Feeding the bull was a lot of fun for the kids. 

They were most impressed by his long curling tongue.  They were also grossed out by it.

Kangaroos are soft!

 After the less-than-thrilling Safari drive, we got to go to the petting area.  It was kind of misleading because you couldn't pet all the animals.  We started with the kangaroos because you could go in with them.  You could pay Y200 ($1.75) for some food to feed them.  The kids loved that!

I had no idea kangaroos were so soft and fuzzy!  These guys were very sweet.  Most of the big ones couldn't be bothered to move or come get the food.  Some of the smaller ones were happy to hop after the kids for treats.  Callie really wanted lots of posed pictures taken and seemed a little obsessed with kissing-the-kangaroo photos.  It was a cool experience.

Animals on Safari

 We finally realized we needed to do the Safari tour before we could do anything else.  We had 2 choices.  We could take the bus for an additional $10 a person, or spend $4 for an audio box and drive our own car through.  The bus let you feed animals through bars, but at $10 a head, we decided it wasn't worth it.  It was still $24 per adult and $12 per kid.  The lady at the booth seemed to think we were confused when we said 3 adults and 4 children.  She finally realize there were, indeed, 7 of us in the van and took our money.

It felt a little bit like Jurassic Park.  You go through these huge gates that close behind you and you have an audio tour that changes when you reach the next point.  There were several series of gates- the predators were kept separate for obvious reasons!

Some animals could come right up to the car (but only the canal did) and we were suppose to keep windows up, which we actually did.  We still got pretty close and saw lots of cool animals.  However, it was rather sad and the animals were a bit depressing.  Still, pretty cool to see them.

I'm just going to post the photos, since you probably know what everything is! No extreme zooming was done at all, FYI.

Have Props, Must Pose

 We did make it safely to Safari Land, even with our little hitch in the trip.  I  had looked at several other peoples experiences with this place and once we arrived, I found my information was severely lacking.  We parked and wandered around for a bit.  The children were obsessed with posing for pictures at random places.

This is the place!

While not the best photo, it is notable for the fact that all 5 kids are in it! 

Being silly. 

Love this boy and his silly sense of fun! And he makes great faces. 

This one cracks me up with that "everything is normal" face she's got on. 

Sweet Rylee. 

Callie was trying to set up this shot, but it didn't quite work like she'd hoped.   

3 little cuties! 

Ryle just HAD to have a picture on this.

An Unexpected Meeting

 On Memorial Day, we decided to go on an adventure!  Well, really we decide to go do something that was on our bucket list.  We decided to go to Safari Land, mainly because it was only 2 hours away and sounded fun.  Plus, I had researched it and my phone said it could get us there.  We were excited and headed off into the sunrise.  It was a solid 2 hour drive.  We did a majority of it on the Sanyo, or the Expressway, to the tune of Y2870 (or $25) in tolls... ONE way. I know, makes you feel better about your toll roads, now, doesn't it!

The road after the Sanyo was also quite nice.  Unfortunately, we had some unpleasant company.  A cop on a motorcycle waved us over.  He did not speak English, but he spoke more than I spoke Japanese!  He came to the window, told us the speed limit was 70 kilometers per hour and Dan had been doing 91.  Ouch!

The policeman went back to his motorcycle for a bit, then came to the window and asked Dan to step out to his motorcycle with him.  I think I'd have been worried had it been a car, but I wasn't worried about Dan being hauled off to jail on a motorcycle!

They were out there FOREVER!  It was well over 30 minutes.  Dan came to take the phone to use the google translate (which was not as helpful as he'd hoped) and the cop had to pull out a dictionary to help explain, but they muddled through.  There was a ton of paperwork, and eventually, Dan walked away with a ticket.  

What was the damage, you ask?  Y15,000 or $130, which had to be paid by June 1, but could be paid locally at a post office or bank.  We refused to let it dampen our enthusiasm, and carried on at a more sedate pace.

Hello Kitty Harmony Land... The end

 There wasn't a ton to do at the park, because it was pretty small.  You could pay more and do some extras, like the Go-Karts, and the Bounce House Land, and a couple other things I didn't look into.  The girls were delighted to ride the little rides and roam around looking at all things Kitty.

There was a Comedy show on their stage that we stopped to see.  It was all in Japanese, so I have no idea what on earth was going on, but the singers and dancers were cute and it certainly WAS funny. We enjoyed watching it, and at least the girls knew who the characters were.

This was some cute telephone operator (I think!) song.  I just loved their little outfits.

I had no clue what was happening here, but the characters were pretty animated and very entertaining. 

This was a super steep hill side.  It was fun to walk down, and you had to take these steep little stairs. What was really cool, is that for the way up, there were little escalators.  They were automated, so they weren't running all the time, just when you tripped the sensor.

Rylee on a magical unicorn! 

We rode this very fun train back up the mountain.   

Me and my ladies on the train! 

Aaaahhhh, we just came up a steep hill! 

I did pay an extra Y500 per kid for them to play in the Bounce House Building and it was totally worth it.  They had a blast.  And I got to sit down.  There was a mom, totally sacked out and sound asleep next to me. 

Delaney had a great time on these monkey bars. 

Rylee made friends in the ball pit.  A cute Japanese mom played with her and Rylee LOVED it. 

We had to have ice cream afterwards. 

It was a huge hit. 

Way more interested in the ice cream than posing in the car. 

Huge end-of-the-day performance by the entrance.  Lots of floats and Hello Kitty and Bubbles and Music.  You can see the girls had fun! 

They let the kids come under the rope fence to Dance with the characters a little and Rylee thought it was great. 

Jumping for bubbles! 

Good-bye high fives from Hello Kitty.

The consensus:  It was a fun trip.  It was especially great for me to let ITT take care of the details.  I would not have liked to drive there myself with the family, since only these 2 really would have liked it.  If you are not a Hello Kitty fan, this is not a fun place to be.  It is a small park and the 5 hours we were there were more than enough to see and do everything. So, Delaney and Rylee loved it but the other kids would have hated it.  We avoided the souvenir shops and didn't buy much.  Just some snacks, drinks and ice cream.  I did spring for the ID cards at the one game, and the bounce house.  So it wasn't as expensive as it could have been, especially since a simple Hello Kitty headband was going for about $10!

It was worth doing, but not doing again.