東武動物公園

Yesterday, we took the kids to the 東武スーパープール (Tobu Super Pool), which is one of the pool amusement parks in the Tokyo area with a current pool, a wave pool and four water slides.

We woke up early and got ready (and my wife and kids made a picnic lunch) and we took the train up north into 埼玉県 (Saitama Prefecture) where the park is.
The weather forecast on the TV said that there was a chance of rain but we decided to go anyways because the pool will close next week for the season (and we have other plans for next weekend)…and it was good that we went because the weather was perfect.

We arrived there at about 11:00 AM and stayed until 3:30PM. My kids were in the pools and water slides the whole time (my wife and I went in for awhile too), and only got out for lunch.

The lunch that my wife and daughters made was おにぎり (rice balls) with salmon inside, chicken, chips and ビール (beer) (the kids drank Coke®).

The only photos that I took there were of my family (which I don’t put online). I didn’t take any other photos at the pool because I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures of other people.
Well, I did take this photo of a 蝉 (cicada) that we saw there:

The 東武スーパープール (Tobu Super Pool) is a part of the excellent 東武動物公園 (Tobu Zoo Park).

So, to get into the Super Pool, you need to buy admission tickets to enter the 東武動物公園 (Tobu Zoo Park), which has an 遊園地 (amusement park), a 動物園 (zoo), a わんこビレッジ (dog village), as well as the 東武スーパープール (Tobu Super Pool).

With that ticket, you can visit the zoo, but the dog village (where you can hold and play with different dogs), the amusement park, and the Super Pool cost extra.

We bought the admission tickets at a discount ticket shop last week, so we saved some money on that cost.

We have been to 東武動物公園 (Tobu Zoo Park) a few times before.
You can see a slideshow of our last visit there at this link.

and another post about it here.

When we left the Super Pool yesterday at 3:30PM, we walked around the zoo and looked at the animals until it closed at 5:30PM.

We were surprised when we were looking at the chimpanzees, they suddenly became quite agitated and started yelling and running around the cage throwing the tires and their water!

Then, at 5:30PM, we headed home for dinner. My wife made excellent 豚キムチ (Pork kimchee (spicy cabbage)).

Here are some videos I took of the animals at the zoo (including the angry chimps):

Recent weekends

Do you know that you can click on all of the “thumbnail” size photos on this blog to see it in full-size?

A couple weekends ago, we decided to look around the Tokyo University campus.

We’ve been in the university’s area many times, but this was the first time we walked onto the campus.

Have you ever heard of Tokyo University? It’s an “Ivy League” school like Harvard or Oxford? When we visited Boston years ago, we checked out Harvard’s campus…just out of curiosity. And that’s why we went to 東大 (“Todai”…the common abbreviation of Tokyo University’s name in Japanese (which is 東京大学 “Tokyo Daigaku”)).

It’s a large, beautiful campus.

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The weekend before that, we went to 東武動物公園 (Tobu-zoo), north of Tokyo.

It’s a very nice zoo / amusement park! They have many rides, roller coasters, a ferris wheel, etc that the kids love…as well as a very nice zoo! And there’s a dog-park…where you can sit and hold and play with any of the numerous dogs there. We don’t have any pets at home…so my kids love that part of the zoo (my wife and I do, as well)!

Here’s a picture of the ferris wheel:

And I took this picture of the roller coaster as my kids were riding it. It was a very fast roller coaster! It looked like torture to me…but they wanted to ride it again (the line was too long, though)!

The hippo’s lunch time:

And this is a “Lesser-Panda”. They are very popular in Japan…because they’re cute—and one was seen standing upright at Ueno Zoo a couple years ago…it was on the news.

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Today is Saturday. The weather is nice and and it’s warm. So my youngest is at the park with her friends…and my oldest daughter took the train with her friend into downtown Tokyo to go shopping!

I recently have been allowing her to take the train with her friends…but always to go somewhere close. Today was the first time I allowed her to go that far. Her and her friend are going to a part of the city popular with teenagers.

I have to let them grow up…I guess.

Anyways…me and the second daughter are about to go to the local library together now.