The Aquarium & Botantical Garden

Our girls woke up Friday morning to find a note from us and a book about a little girl that lives in Japan. 

Side note:  Do you know how many children's books there are about Japan?  One.  Seriously.  And it had to be special ordered.

When the girls woke up Friday morning, we were going to bed after an awesome day at the aquarium and botanical gardens.  We started our day off with a breakfast buffet here at the hotel.  It was pretty good!  It was a rather odd breakfast, and I pretty much stuck to the familiar foods thus it was pretty random.  I had fries, a Japanese donut, a banana, toast with strawberry jam, a sausage link and a bite of a Japanese omelet and brown rice porridge.  It filled me up so I wasn't complaining!  They also had these little things that looked like waffle bites, but it tasted like a cake donut with double the sugar.

After breakfast, we headed out to the aquarium.  We had a really nice little driver.  He was great.  He stopped off at this museum that showed out the older traditional houses were built in Japan. 

It was a pretty neat place, full of school kids there on field trips.  They all wore uniforms and were very respectful.  One our way back to the van, a lady working in the gardens passed us in her work wear.  :)

The Japanese have a good sense of humor.  Their cones/barriers were little gargoyles.  On the way back from the aquarium we saw some that looked like frogs.  Random but cool.

Our driver was a pretty neat guy.  He kept insisting on taking a group photo for us.  We ended up with about five from different times throughout the day.  Here is our whole group outside of the aquarium.

The aquarium was simply awesome.  There really is no other word to describe it.  I could have sat there and watched those fish swim for hours!

This is totally my mom.  She teaches 5th/6th grade science and she was like a little kid in the candy store when she figured out we could touch the starfish and other crustaceans. :)

Keith said their shark exhibit was the best he had ever seen.  My nephew Logan would have thought it was pretty cool. 

Outside the aquarium, there was a manatee exhibit.  It was feeding time.  Turns out manatees are herbivores so they were having carrots for lunch.  They are rather strange looking animals.

Next to the manatees were the sea turtles.  There were a lot of them of all different sizes.  They were a lot more active than any of the sea turtles we have seen at other exhibits.

This is the back of the aquarium.

The dolphin exhibits were next.  They actually had three different dolphin tanks.  The biggest one had just finished a show and we had missed it.  One of the smaller tank put on a little demonstration for a crowd.  I actually caught a dolphin in mid jump!

Have I mentioned how fun the Japanese sense of humor is?  :)

We had just enough time after leaving the aquarium to stop off at the botanical gardens.  All the guys were not really that interested in going but once we got inside they were all in awe of how beautiful it was.  Keith kept saying how awesome it would be to have this place as an option for family pictures!

Mom and Dad

Eric & Yuki

Mom and I found a secret garden.  :)

Here is Rapunzel's tower.  :)  I would tell say we walked all the way to the top...but we didn't.  We cheated and rode the elevator.  The view from the top was pretty awesome.  Everywhere you turned it was the perfect photo opportunity.  We could have stayed for another hour but were on a time crunch and took in what we could.

We left to head back to the hotel.  On the way, we passed the local church of Christ bldg.  It was actually the one church building we had seen since coming to Japan.  Pretty cool.

We got back to the hotel and Mom and Dad had spa appointments at the EM Wellness Center Spa.  They said the massage was amazing.  Maybe if time permits I can squeeze in a massage before we leave!  :)

And finally, let me just show off the newest member of our family.  Meet our new neice, Ms. Eady Lucielle King, born November 14th.  Isn't she beautiful?!  I think her big brother is rather proud!  I can't wait to get back to Texas and love on this cute little angel!  Congrats to my brother, Andy and sister-in-law, Michelle.  Ya'll did good.  :)