Golden Week Vacation

This year for Golden Week, we didn't go anywhere too far. The highways are so crowded that we hate going anywhere during the long holidays! Who wants to sit in traffic for hours? (plus, I don't think my bladder would be able to handle sitting in the car for long periods of time!) However, we didn't exactly stay home during the vacation either. We went around locally, trying not to use the highways if possible.

We went to the Aburatsubo Aquarium along the Miura Peninsula, which is about a 45 minute drive from our house. It's a really nice drive, and the area has a country-side feel to it. Not exactly the touristy spot, but beautiful none-the-less. The aquarium was really small, and we couldn't believe that they actually charge 1,700 yen (roughly $17) for entrance to this tiny place! We had a coupon, so it came out to 1500 yen per person plus 500 yen for parking. This place is nothing like the size of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium!!! but, it was nice anyway, mainly a good place to take small kids who don't have a long attention span, since you can go through the whole aquarium in a few hours. There was even a dolphin and sea lion show, with a cute monkey act squeezed between performances.

We also visited the Tama Zoo, which is another local spot, about 40 minutes away. We were just surfing the Internet looking for local places to go to, and I thought of the Tama Zoo. I've heard other people saying that they take their kids there, so I thought we'd check it out. We looked at the web page and found out that May 4th and 5th are free entrance days!! Yeah!!! We were lucky that the next day just happened to be May 5th, so we couldn't pass up this opportunity!!! We arrived at 8:30am (doors open at 9am) and it was already crowded! Obviously we weren't the only ones who knew about the free day!!! The main attraction of the day was the Lion Bus. It's a mini safari (costs extra) where you get on a bus and drive through the lion enclosure for about 7 minutes. (by the way, the bus is actually painted to look like a zebra, not a lion). There are a few strips of meat hanging on the side of the bus so the lions actually come up to the bus and you can be face-to-face with the lion! Definitely exciting and worth the extra 350 yen! The usual cost of admission is 600 yen for adults, and can you believe that kids 12 and under are free? It is definitely worth the money and we'll be going back when our kid is big enough. The only setback is that parking costs a whopping 1400 yen!!! That's more than double the regular admission price!!!