Photos

I went thru some of my photos and decided to post a bunch of them on my blog. Mostly as Slideshows.

For convenience, here’s a menu of the pictures, slideshows, and video on this post:

Turtle	Butterfly	Beetle
Cicada	Kawasaki Halloween	Kamakura Horseback Archery
Asakusa Horseback Archery	Asakusa New Years	Tokyo Disneyland
Park	Cherry Blossom Viewing	Ibaraki
Yokohama	Kameido-Tenjin	Harajuku / Shibuya
Ueno	Tokyo Tower	Tokyo Dome area
Tokyo Stn / Imperial Palace	University of Tokyo	Tobu Zoo
Ryogoku		Bottom of this post

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First are some of the small animals that have been living in our house recently.

Our ミドリ亀 (Red-eared slider turtle):

My YouTube video of our ミドリ亀 (Red-eared slider turtle):

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The アゲハ蝶 (Swallowtail Butterfly) (and his 蛹 (cocoon)).

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Here’s a slideshow of our カブト虫 (Rhino beetle) eating gelatin.

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A slideshow of our 蝉 (Cicada) emerging from it’s moult (outer shell).

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Here’s ハロウィーン (Halloween) at 川崎 (Kawasaki):

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And here’s a slideshow of the 流鏑馬 (Horseback Archery) at 鎌倉 (Kamakura):

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And the 流鏑馬 (Horseback Archery) at 浅草 (Asakusa):

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And here’s a slideshow of New Years at 浅草 (Asakusa):

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東京ディズニーランド (Tokyo Disneyland):

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A park near our house:

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花見 (Cherry Blossom Viewing):

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茨城県 (Ibaraki) is a countryside prefecture to the north of 東京都 (Tokyo):

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横浜 (Yokohama):

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亀戸天神 (Kameido-Tenjin Shrine):

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原宿 (Harajuku) and 渋谷 (Shibuya):

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These photos are from 上野 (Ueno):

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東京タワー (Tokyo Tower):

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The 東京ドーム (Tokyo Dome) area (including the amusement park and 小石川後楽園 (Koishikawa-kourakuen Japanese Gardens)). There happened to be a cosplay event on the day I took these photos:

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東京駅 (Tokyo Train Station) and the 皇居 (Imperial Palace):

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東京大学 (The University of Tokyo):

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東武動物公園 (Tobu-Doubutsukouen Zoo):

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両国 (Ryougoku), the area of Tokyo with the 国技館 (Sumo Arena):

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Please leave a comment of what you think of these photos!

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横浜

Yesterday was the last day of my kids’ Spring Vacation from school. Today’s the first day of the new school year.

So, yesterday, we decided to go to Yokohama again.

Actually, we originally planned to go to the “Friendship Day Festival” at the US Navy base. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. But we heard that they were canceling the event due to the recent crimes by US servicemen.
Since we were gonna go down to 神奈川県 (Kanagawa), we decided to re-visit Yokohama.

As I mentioned in the post below, we hadn’t been to Yokohama in awhile and alot has changed there over the years. And the last time we went, we didn’t have time to visit all the places we wanted to go.

So, yesterday, we went to the 「横浜アンパンマンこどもミュージアム」 (“Yokohama Anpanman Children’s Museum”).

“Anpanman” is a Japanese young children’s cartoon character of a superhero made of bean-stuffed bread named “Anpan-man” (“Bean-paste Bread Man”). He, and his friends (who are all different food characters), battle the villians who are led by “Baikinman” (“Germ Man”) using good nutrition, soap, and kindness (it is a cartoon for young children, after all).

My kids have long outgrown any interest in Anpanman. So we didn’t go into the museum…but visited the bread store and gift shops.

Here’s a picture of some bread made in the image of some of the characters from the show:

After we left there, we walked past a road that is semi-famous in Yokohama because it has a wall the entire length of the road that is covered in elaborate graffiti.

Here are a bit of the art that caught my attention:

From there, we headed over to a park and ate a picnic lunch that my wife and daughters prepared and then we walked over to the 野毛山動物園 (“Nogeyama Zoo”).

The 横浜動物園 (“Yokohama Zoo”) is the main zoo in Yokohama and it’s a great zoo. But the Nogeyama Zoo is nice too…and it’s free!

For a free zoo, I was surprised how nice it is, actually. They have reptiles, birds, penguins, monkeys, giraffes, tigers, lions (the male lion had died recently), a camel and a petting zoo with small animals (chicks, guinea pigs, mice, etc) that kids can hold.

It was nice and we enjoyed it.

After we left the zoo, we went to 山下公園 (“Yamashita Park”). We hadn’t been there in years…I was surprised that they built a convenience store there. It’s a good location for one, though. I bet they get alot of customers.

“Yamashita Park” is near 横浜中華街 (“Yokohama Chinatown”), so we headed there.

Near Chinatown, there were many 人力車 (“Rick shaw”) drivers offering rides around the area (Rick-shaw can be found in many traditional areas of Japan offering rides to tourists). (“Rick-shaw”, by the way, comes from the Japanese word 人力車 (jin-riki-sha ) which translates, literally, to “Man powered vehicle”).

Here’s the entrance to Chinatown (can you tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese style? Both countries have torii gates, temples, shrines, paper lanterns, etc…but they look quite different.):

A closer look:

After we looked around Chinatown a bit, we went for dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours and then headed home.

The girls had school in the morning.