Kanazawa Zoo and Cup Noodle Museum!

Last of couple of weekends have been great weather and we've taken advantage by going out to the Kawazawa zoo and Yokohama.

The Zoo was a really nice place but somehow they managed to put this zoo on the side of a damn mountain!  Sweet mother of pearl did we do some walking!  Despite the hills and the distance we had a blast.  Lila hung in there walking just about the whole day!  You could say if you've seen one zoo you've seen them all, but as usual, it is the animals that make it different.  This zoo had a large population of kangaroos.  The kids got a kick out of seeing the babies being carried around by the mommas, and the occasional kangaroos boxing, punching each other in the snout, playing around.

Lila really liked the giraffes.  They had 3 adults and one youngster.    

Of course Harrison felt right at home.

After awhile all the kids were getting into the swing of things!

At the end of the zoo, they have a park with a large roller slide and a kids obstacle course...again, both located on the side of a pretty steep hill.  After all the walking around they had plenty of energy for a few runs up the hill.

 

This weekend we took a train ride up to Cup Noodle Museum!   The Cup Noodle Museum is centered on Momofuku Ando.  This gentlemen lived to be 96 years old and is noted for developing the first at home chicken ramen (just add water), the Cup Noodle, and then Space Ramen for Shuttle missions.  It was a pretty cool story of a guy starting with nothing by a small wooden hut cooking up noodles and his determination to the instant noodles right!   Here's a picture of the boys with Mr Momofuku Ando.

Not sure how it fits in to the story of Cup Noodle, but they had one of those "forced perspective" rooms.  If used correctly it could make Lila look larger than Harrison.  I'm not so sure my kids understood the purpose of the room.

Lila was having fun looking through the window back at the camera, and even went for the extreme close-up.  Harrison on the other hand was hamming it up as well.  First he scared off some little kid.  They he went with the angry chimp impression from Family guy.  Not sure who the girl is next to him, but she didn't mind at all with his shenanigans!

Another cool part of the museum is that you get to make your own Cup of Noodle.  You don't get to actually make the noodles themselves, that's another part of the museum, but you can add the ingredients you want and design the cup yourself.  Evidently, using some markers and designing your own label on a white cup is a great way for you to NOT realize that it takes an hour to get through the lines.  The common trend for the ingredients was curry, pork, kimchi and cheese!  "Can I have a little more sodium with mine?  I don't think my blood pressure is high enough."

Lila was all into the assembly line.  She thought it was cool when the lady sealed the cup and put it through the plastic wrap.  

Overall another great day.  Yokohama is a huge city.  We just keep knocking things off the list every chance we get.  On the way home we took a quick walk through Chinatown.  We'll definitely have to make a separate trip back to explore that a little more.

Not your normal birthday celebration

Well my beautiful wife turned a significant age this past May 1st.  I won't say what age, because that's not what gentlemen talk about.  We'll just say it was the Sweet 16th Anniversary of her 24th birthday!
Anyways, in the preps for the big day, I was notified by my favorite aunt on Amie's side that the Champagne family, when a certain age is reached, no longer celebrate just a day, it expands to a month!  Well unfortunately, due to the late notification, Amie only got a week this year.  I'll plan accordingly for next year.

Now normally when such a honorary age is reached a large surprise party is planned and friends and family from all over come to get the birthday person completely drunk in the squadron bar.  Oh wait, that only happened to me.  For Amie we actually did have a few days worth of 'surprises' planned.  It started on the Sunday prior with the boys kidnapping Amie and taking her to lunch at one of her favorite restaurants in Zushi.  Then on her birthday itself, we had the traditional birthday cake and presents.

The big day was a trip to Toyko!  Just Amie and myself.  We went to the Ginza district in Toyko, known for many high end shops and restaurants.  We spent our afternoon walking around the city blocks checking out the various stores from Apple to Sony, with a quick stop at Tiffany's.  It was a beautiful day, there was even a parade.  I would like to take credit for setting it up for Amie's birthday but it was actually an enormous Cinco de Mayo parade!

We closed out the day by taking a train over to Harajaku, which I'll save for another post, and taking a stroll through the Meiji park!  The park is similar to Central Park in New York in that it is a large green treed area in the middle of the city.  The park is home to both one of the largest Tori Gates and a large wall of Saki!  The saki is a yearly offering to the enshrined deities!  I think I like where this is going!  I think my sweet heart had a great birthday.  I mean how many people can say "My husband took me to Tokyo for my birthday!"