Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Recap: Higashiyama Park and Nagoya Castle

FRIENDS (and random dudes/dudettes in Russia and Latvia who are reading my blog for some reason), LET US TRAVEL INTO THE MISTS OF THE PAST TO A LAND KNOWN ONLY AS

(ominous pause)

MONDAY, JANUARY 2, 2012.

(deedle deedle deedle deedle)

ANYWAY.

We decided to go to 東山動植物公園, known in English as Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens OR Higashiyama Park.


Where there were rhinoceroses.


And deer.


And this crane (?) which was pretty convinced it was a penguin.


And these real penguins.


And this dude feeding penguins.  (And an adorable baby penguin who followed him everywhere.)


And a giant ferris wheel, because apparently it's an amusement park as well as a zoo and botanical garden?

Oh, and there's also a sky tower.





This is now the Pictures from High Places Blog.


Also wallabies.  Although this is actually a picture of the kangaroos.

Also, they had a bunch of wolves which they had separated into two cages because the girls were in heat.  Needless to say, neither party was particularly happy.

Also, there were other animals but I didn't take pictures of them because sometimes I forget to take pictures, and also it was so cold that my fingers were going numb.  Miranda and Nick took pictures though, so you guys should all pester them for pictures.

As it turned out, it is COLD in winter, and also the dry season, which means that (unlike in California) everything is super dead.  That meant the botanical garden was not all that exciting.

Except for the greenhouses.



These plants kinda freak me out.  SOMETIMES THEY EAT BIRDS.





"Even if you throw coins in [the pond], your love will not be realized."


This is a TALL CACTUS.  Some might even say it is taller than Nick.  And that's pretty tall.


"Even if you throw coins in [the pond], your wish won't come true."

Think they were having problems with people throwing their coins in the pond?


CACTI.


So in Japan you sort your garbage into "burnable garbage" and "not burnable garbage," but apparently they have a different garbage sorting system here...


HUGE tree.

So after that, we stopped by this little temple that's between the park and my place.



It also has a giant Buddha statue out back, 'cause why not?

NEXT DAY!

We decided to go over to Nagoya Castle.


Where New Year's offerings and an offering box had been placed before the fish-dolphin-killer-whale, and people were praying to it.


Also, there was a random stone hut in the back.


Proof that it is impossible to take a picture of me without my making some sort of bizarre face.

(This was in the museum in the castle, which, by the way, is pretty cool.  They had a little palanquin model that you could sit in and discover THE MAJESTY OF EDO-ERA TRAVEL.  There was even a little video screen in the side of the palanquin so you could watch the street go by outside...)


More views from the top of things!


I like high places, if this wasn't already obvious.


So apparently a bunch of deer wandered into Nagoya Castle's moat and were just chilling there?


So I keep seeing these things everywhere, and I THINK they're trees that have been wrapped up in straw mats for some reason.  But I dunno.


And here's a random garden on the Nagoya Castle grounds.

WHOOOOO.

Next post will be ISE and KYOTO.

Okaygottarunbye.

2 comments:

  1. Um, not sure if it's the Japanese or the English that has issues, but "Even if you throw coins in, your wish won't come true" is pretty different from "Throwing coins in will not make your wish more likely to come true," which I think is what they meant. The former takes a pretty pessimistic approach toward wishes...

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  2. You should have totally taken a picture on the golden fish-dolphin-killer-whale in the museum if it was still around (that was so for taking pictures on)! =D

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