My Field Trip With Alex

Took my first field trip with Alex.  Always difficult to get on a trip because the school only gives two weeks notice to the parents, so I could never put in for leave.  This time Lyana requested at least a month’s notice, so I was able to get time off for it.  Good thing too.  Who wouldn’t want to take a day off of work to go to Hachinohe Botanical Gardens (okay, not so exciting) AND Children’s Land!! (complete with roller coaster).

We had a fantastic time (albeit a bit pricey). You can purchase ticket books for 1100 yen for 11 tickets, which you of course use for the rides. I wonder how they determine how many tickets to charge for each ride.  This dolphin ride that goes around very short water track costs 2 tickets and lasted less than 30 seconds.  

The swings, however, cost only 1 ticket and was plenty long enough to dizzy up the kids.

Same thing here with the ol’ fighter plane that goes up and down when you press the button.  Plenty of value for your ticket on this one.

This was one of my favorites, though I didn’t actually ride on it.  For two tickets, adults could ride, so I opted out; but kids were one ticket only, so I let Alex go alone.  They’re individual pedal-powered mono-rail cars.  Think of it as one-way bumper cars – that’s how the kids saw it.  Alex (in the middle) would catch up to the kid in front of him (who was shorter so could barely reach the pedals, not to mention he had just gone around one time before the other kids got on, so he was already tired which meant he was traveling near sloth-speed) and ram him from behind, which would give the front kid an extra boost, but slowed Alex down enough that the kid in back would ram into Alex, who would then pick up speed and ram the kid in front again.  Alex was like a pinball bouncing in between the other kids (the bumpers on the front and back of the cars were spring-loaded, too).

Ferris wheel – very tall, very long and only one ticket (for kids).    Good value for you ticket here too.  Not sure what the deal was with those dolphins.  Funny thing is, as the park filled up with kids after lunch, the dolphin ride was one of the more popular rides.

Up the hill is a kodomo place – a kid’s indoor playground, basically.  Looked brand new.  Kids 3 to 12 could play inside the huge nets.  (You can see how sweaty Alex got).  Watch out for the guys outside the nets patrolling, with whistles.  Oh, best part – FREE!!  There was a plastic sled hill (Misawaites, you know what I’m talking about) just outside the front door. 

Around the park there were seemingly random animal exhibits.  Like these goofy monkeys you see here.  And if you look behind them on the rocks, there’s a bunch of Japanese snow monkeys too.

As is typical of Japanese zoos, lots and lots of animals in cramped living quarters.  They looked happy, though (I think one smiled at me).

There were plenty of other things to do there, I just forgot to take pictures of them all.  There were some fun go-carts, that I think were worth the price (two tickets for adults and one ticket for kids riding together in the two-seater).  I’d go back just for that.  The roller coaster – three tickets for adults and two for kids (remember, each ticket costs about 100 yen) – was fun, just short.  Not built for tall people either.  I had to put my hands down at one point where we went under the track.  All in all, a fun place to take your kids once.  Twice?  Not yet.

And I’ll leave you with one last picture of Mr. Alex and the Japanese carrot. 

Rob