Nogeyama Zoo, Yokohama, Cup Noodles

We took Monday and Tuesday of this week easy because we needed to clean and rest from walking all weekend, but then Wednesday was freezing cold and extremely windy so we were stuck home.  I was starting to get cabin fever but was able to get out on Thursday, but Friday Cora had a stomach flu!  It was Cora's first time throwing up, and she did about 30 times within 5 hours, but after that seemed to be fine.  This sickness has been going around the complex and I was really hoping my kids didn't get it!  Now I'm just praying George doesn't!  Come Saturday I had to get out because I was going insane from staying inside our dark, small apartment!  We were out and about for a good 12 hours.

On our walk to the train station, down the fat buster hill, we can see these guys putting in a retaining wall.  They are just dangling from the scaffolding.  Scary!  Here is a before picture and we will take another one after.

The wall looks like a checker pattern which is common here.

 Then we went with our friends the Urban's to Nogeyama Zoo which is free in Yokohama.  It takes about 45 minutes to get there and then you just walk straight in and it is completely free.  You feel a little bad for all the animals because their enclosures are SOO small, but so are all the human enclosures too!

Yokohama Landmark Tower that we went in a week or two ago that has the fastest elevator.

Cora and Abigail!  Best friends!

Cora was quite concerned about dad's hand and Kevin kept bothering her by putting it in there.  He is such a tease!

The Red Panda.  We were so close to this and there was no fence.  I seriously felt like Kevin could touch them if he leaned in enough...a little iffy.

Two of my three kids seeing how they compare!

They had this random peahen walking around and the girls kept chasing it.  Then a worker grabbed it and held it so all the kids could pet it.  Cora was first in line!

We didn't bring a lunch thinking the area might have something, but it only had this vending machine .  We got the hotdogs and french fries and it was actually okay.

Two mini hot dogs for Y350, not too shabby!

 They had this free petting zoo part that they had guinea pigs, chicks, rats, mice, and chickens at.  You just grabbed a blanket to hold them on (saved us from lots of poop!) and they even had brushes to pet them with.  Cora was a little too excited and just kept running off and very firmly brushing an animal letting know how much she loved it.  There was a rope obstacle course above us where the rats would run around and climb all over.  A little creepy.

Ready to pounce.

The rats...Lara, isn't this like your room in college?

I think I liked the chicks the best.  They were so cute and cuddly and were just starting to get their feathers!

George just wasn't quite sure about the chicken, but finally pet it.  Shortly there after he tried to kiss/eat it.

Cora trying extremely hard to be soft and gentle.

Dinner?  Reminds me of Ian's picture.  Maybe it is a Spencer-boy thing.

Mice and Rat course.

They had this area too with lots of mice that you couldn't touch.  My favorite is the Power Ranger -put-your-face-behind-the-picture-thing!  The mice actually put their faces out!

A bigger picture of the ropes.

This chicken loved me, even asked me to take him home, he knew that I knew of a guy that likes to keep 30 chickens and 6 roosters in one small backyard, but I had to convince him he had a better life here.

Isn't this super close?

These lions were so close and I just loved them.  Really fun to see them so close and they are so beautiful!

   Then it was about a mile walk to downtown Yokohama so we decided to head up that way to explore.

Interesting Architecture

COLETTE-MARE!  This was a huge mall and named after two of my favorite people!  Yeah, I'm talking about you Colette Hartman and Mare Delmege! 

Street Performer

This is right by the Landmark tower we went on a few weeks ago, but it was night when we walked by this part so we had no idea it was there!  It is a dry dock, just in the middle of the city, kind of like the boat from before, and you can go walk through it.  Awesome.

Where that ferris wheel is they have a bunch of rides.  It costs like 300 yen, per person per kid ride and 700 yen for an adult ride.  Gets expensive, but we told Cora she could do one.

This is the one she choose.  It seriously went around in a circle, up and down a few times, and cost us about $7 for us both to ride.  Hahaha, ridiculous.

But don't we look so excited?  

Another view of the tower from the other side and you can see Cosmo World and a few rides.

 Someone told us about Cup of Noodles (although there is no OF, I always thought it was cup OF noodles) Museum.  We saw a ton of people with a big balloon necklace with a cup of noodle package in it so we decided to check it out.  Probably our best decision!  This was the coolest place!!  Cora was asleep when we hit the kid play area, so I didn't get any pictures of that, but seriously this place was like 5 levels and people were going crazy about each exhibit!

Little did we know at this point what we were in for!

The entry way, looks kind of like the musee de o'rsay in Paris?

They had a timeline with the first cup noodles and all the products and when they came out, then on this wall was each country they export to and types of flavors they have.  This was a huge room and pretty cool.

Here is Cora by the USA types of Cup Noodles, she was thrilled.  

They had this room you could go in where others watched  a video feed on the outside trying to mess with perspective and proportions, anyway Kevin went in (there were only children in there besides him) and ...  next picture.

Put George's sleeping face up to the camera and everyone was  full out laughing and taking pictures and pointing.  The only problem with being the only American's around is I can't pretend I don't know him :)

Showing you through a 3D exhibit wall how to make cup noodles.

A modern art sculpture of Cup Noodles.

A silver statue of Mr. Noodle!

This was the best!  Never Give Up!!  Pictured are Helen Keller, Einstein, Babe Ruth, Galileo, Aristotle, etc., and Mr. Noodle.  Hahaha.

Then they had this Noodles Bazaar where they had noodle dishes from 8 different countries: China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Italy, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan.  You walked through those drapes and it was all dark and the restaurants lined the walls with tables and fake trees in the middle like it was a real street.  We decided to try the Chinese one, (Italy's was just spaghetti and too boring) and it wasn't bad.  They also had a little pamphlet you could get stamped at each location if you tried it.  It was pretty awesome.

A few of the places.  Oh and you buy your dish through a vending machine to get a token (each dish was Y300 and the drink from each country was Y200) and then you take the token to the food preparer and they make it for you.

 

The other side.

 Then we finally got to the MAKE YOUR OWN CUP NOODLE!  It was Y300 per cup and you got to color your own cup and then stand in line to put in noodles and 4 toppings then they seal it for you and you put it in your bubble protector.  

The toppings: squid and shrimp were some of the delicious options.

The coloring station.  This place was packed.  We had to schedule a time to come make ours and  even then it was people everywhere!!

 

Kevin popped his balloon on the way home, well George did by biting it, but here is ours.  

And the front.

Our new favorite place!

Then church this week was the best!  It started an hour later (at 10:00 am instead of 9:00 which makes a huge difference when it takes an hour to get there), it was only sacrament meeting, it was combined with the Japanese branch (normally we are just with the Military branch that is all English speaking) and so someone said a talk in Japanese and it was translated into English and then a talk in English translated to Japanese.  Kevin even gave the opening prayer and they had the primary kids go up and sing I am a Child of God in Japanese.  It was Cora's first time going to the front to sing with a primary and it was the cutest thing ever, even though she didn't sing a word.  She looked SO proud of herself as she walked back to us!  THEN it was a potluck so we got to eat local Japanese cuisine and some good American cuisine!  Homemade Chow Mein is WAY better than pre-packaged stuff.  Lots of the dishes were really good.  THENNNNN the best part of it all, the Japanese Youth were going crazy over George and this boy below and two girls just played with him and followed him everywhere and giggled and laughed at everything he did even though he wasn't being all the cute or nice at the time (church is right during his first nap).  It was awesome! I got to eat and socialize and they took him for a good hour and a half.  I kept trying to take him back so they could eat, but they took turns holding him.  I also got to practice a little bit of my Japanese with them.  I'll admit, I kind of wish church was like this every week!

  

Then on the way home, there were all these vendors and street dancers! It must have been some kind of festival/holiday or something.  All of the dancers were older women too, which was awesome and hilarious. 

First set of dancers.

Second set, this one had a man who danced around waving that HUGE flag, pretty impressive.

Set three!

Some of the local cuisine!

All tuckered out!

Kevin and I have been making a list of all the things we would want the United States to adopt from Japanese culture and what we are okay without.  And the more I think about it, and even though I was anti before we came because it is different and I understand our system so well, but we should totally convert over to the metric system.  It is so much easier.  Height, 24 hour time, Celsius, other measurements, etc.  I am becoming a firm believer!  And heated toilet seats, I mean seriously, America!!  Get it together!