Episode 16: Archery and Animals start with 'eh?'

Konnichiwa Mina-san!!!

Wow, it's been a week, and already I feel live I've been neglecting this baby. For that, I will have to post extra big, extra high definition pictures this week, so hit the refresh, make yourself some tea, and sit back down for some amazing animal adventures!!!

On my Thursday off Rachel and I made our way up to Nagoya to check out the Hagashiyama Zoo! Once you ride the Kintetsu Train into Nagoya, you hop on a Subway (The Lemon Line) and ride for about 15 minutes... after that it's a two minute walk. Overall, an easy trip, and including all travel fees, travel times and Zoo costs, we were out about 3hrs of travel time and $30 Canadian dollars. Not bad, eh? Anywho, it was raining like crazy, and so instead of going straight to the Zoo, we went to a place called "Jonathan's" for an early lunch. I ordered the above pictured BLT sandwich, which was to my liking. Rachel went for the pasta, which she was craving and assured me was good.

The weather quickly cleared up, and before long it was a hot and humid, yet beautiful day... So the 'Zo' it was. Without any further ado, here are some pictures I snapped on our Safari through Hagashiyama!


I've recently found that I enjoy Rhinos. They're pretty awesome. One of them was going nuts on an orange ball, pushing it around and playing with it. They're basically land hippos.







Check out this Camel! His teeth are better than most of my students'! Hahaha, I joke, I joke...








The Penguins were really cute. They were having a race around the circular pool, as well as just hanging out. At one time the cool-misters came on, and a few of them crowded around for a shower. I've got a video, but I can't post it here. I may put it up on www.youtube.com so if you're interested, swing by and look for videos under "Bentron." (PS if you're really bored, you could always check out the other films I've got posted.)



Giraffes are really cool too. I can really see why they're the tallest animal in the world... basically, they're just that tall. At one time I kinda thought that two of them were going to make babies, but they decided not to at the last second... probably for the best, seeing how a group of hyperactive 6yr old Japanese elementary students were hanging over the railings.




This guy here was my buddy monkey. When he saw me, he came running out of his hiding spot, and sat on the ledge and started making farting noises with his mouth. Anywho, I clapped for him and he clapped for me, and we spent the next couple minutes taking turns giving each other one clap.





Hippo Lovers.









I don't even remember what this guy was called, but he was pretty cute, so I thought I'd include him in the photo.








This guy wanted to kill me. He's beautiful, eh Laura? (She hates snakes...)








After a few hours, and a trip up the Skytower, we had to say good-bye to all the animals, and though I really enjoyed it, I couldn't help but feel bad for some of the poor guys as we disappeared from view. Their cages were much smaller than they should have been. The comparison I'd make would be that of Japanese houses to North American houses. It was really cool to look at them all and see what the world has in terms of species diversity! I think they had over 540 different species of animals at the Zo.



Also in the world of Ben, I have recently begun a new sport... Archery! Check out some mean pics of Jon, Yumi, Hiro, Hiroyuki and myself. Hiroyuki is my teacher, and he's a really nice guy. You may remember him from a previous post, where I mentioned that he took Yumi, Jon, Ashanthi and myself out to Tsu-museum, and Shinjuji Temple. Anywho, he's also an Archery master. (Hahaha, he wouldn't claim to be a master, but we all know it's true.)


As the new guy, I had a lot to learn in my first experience with 'proper' archery. After a little bit of a learning curve, and once all the smoke had cleared, I could shoot pretty consistently at a target from 30 metres away. I even came within a couple centimeters of the bull's eye. I'm impressed with myself, and I didn't expect anything that close for my first try.





Okay, and so though I'm tired and want to go to bed, I also want to let everyone know that I have moved! Yay!1! I'll be posting new pictures of my apartment very soon, so stay tuned for next post! Until then,

Mattane!

-benjamin out.