We did make it to the aquarium on Thurs. It was raining a bit so the weather seemed best to go. We took the train from Tokyo to Ikebukuro. It took a bit, but wasn't too terribly crowded. It was good for the kids to see Tokyo - the busy one with tons of shops and restaurants and all types of people everywhere. It wasn't terribly crowded, though by American standards it probably was. After asking directions, we found our way to the 60 story Sunshine building. It was once considered quite tall by Tokyo standards. It has a large shopping mall area in the bottom 4 stories or so and offices in the middle, the observatory on the top. The aquarium is on the top of part of the building, but probably only 10 stories tall. First, we went to the Disney store to try to buy tickets, but the ticket machine was broken, so we headed to the aquarium. As soon as we got there, the sea lion show was starting, so we watched that. It was a pretty good show with the sea lions doing the typical tricks - waving, balancing and bouncing ball on nose, etc. We passed by the penguins and went and saw the pelican feeding - I don't think I had every seen that before and it was pretty cool to see their huge throats. Then, we looked at the exhibits - the tanks were really pretty, well organized and very clear. We watched the show in the big tank with a diver going around. It was cool to see her hold the shark and also to watch the school of fish follow her around and go in circles around here. Obviously, me and the kids couldn't understand the dialogue, but it was still very enjoyable. We finished viewing the tanks and also watched the sea otter feeding. The sea otter was cute to watch eating the various food while simultaneously holding on tightly to his little toy ball. We went to the second floor exhibits - I especially enjoyed the jellyfish and then it was time to go. We went back to the Disney store and bought tickets for Disney land. The ticket machine was working, but of course, NONE of our US credit cards work. Thankfully, we could use Katsu's parents' card and just pay them back in cash later. It is so frustrating how hard it is to get money in Japan - more often than not, credit cards won't work unless you call (although ours did work at the hotel here) and US ATM cards will only work at the post office or 7 Eleven. Really. We went to a little tiny chain restaurant and the boys got kids meals for less than $2 which included a toy. They were all pretty happy about that - of course, the toys broke pretty fast, but still fun.
That evening we went out with the whole Funai family (Hiroko included) to the Korean BBQ again. Everyone was happy and awake and it was a good evening for all. Logan was pretty restless at the end, so we needed to walk around a whole bunch with him, but that kept him happy.
Friday, we didn't really have anything to do and no where to go, so we headed off to Aeon. By this point, I was getting pretty sick of it, but we needed to pick up some food for our trip to Disneyland. Andrew was also upset that he hadn't gotten new shoes, so we needed to get those as well. The boys played forever at the arcades - somehow it was double day, so the $5 in coins went for 2 hours of play for both boys! Kind of crazy. They had loads of fun, though. I was ready to go home! In the evening, we all went out for (Japanese) Chinese food. It's interesting to see its' contrast to American Chinese food.
Saturday morning, we packed and finally left the Saitama hotel! Yay! We went to Katsu's home and repacked some more and the boys just watched way too many Doraemon movies until it was time to drive to our hotel in Chiba near Disneyland. Katsu's dad drove us, which was super nice. We settled into the hotel - the boys were so excited to be there. They wanted to go to Disneyland immediately, but we hadn't bought tickets for that day, of course. We set off walking and found a FANTASTIC park. Like this park seriously made me feel like maybe Japanese people weren't completely ignorant of the needs of kids. The kids played for quite a while. Then, we went to the mall that is inbetween the parks and went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. The boys loved it, especially Logan who was very fascinated with all the animals. We walked around a bit and watched a show with a man and a bike doing tricks. It was pretty entertaining and then we walked back to the hotel. We tried to let the older boys stay up to watch fireworks from Disney land. You can see them from our hotel, but I think the weather was too cloudy, so they must have been canceled. Tomorrow was the start of the our two day adventure.
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