Archive for July 10th, 2009

Day 17 – Adventure World

Friday, July 10th, 2009

I was expecting that the trip to Adventure World was going to be one of the highlights of this trip to Japan.  And it turned out to be true.

It’s an aquarium, a zoo and a theme park combined into one.  The whole park is not too huge.  It’s not much work to walk from one end of the park to the other end.  They still packed so much into the whole place.  Admission is not cheap (3800 yen for adults), and the rides aren’t cheap either (price varies – the big roller coaster is 600 yen, the giant Ferris wheel is 500 yen, etc).  There are still plenty of entertainment you can enjoy just with the general admission.

I saw more junior-high- and high-school students at Hiroshima Peace Park, but this place was filled more with younger kids.  It’s really a perfect place for a family.

We left the park at about 3:30.  We were pretty exhausted by then.  My daughter and I still ventured out to Osaka Hard Rock Cafe on our way home though.  And there, I finally convinced my daughter to get her own HRC T-shirt.

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Day 16 – travel day

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Does one really need a whole day to travel one spot in Japan to another?  We do sometimes.  This was one of those days.  Day 16 went…

8:00 – wake up late, start packing up.  We were up pretty late the night before, so waking up wasn’t very easy.  But it had to be done in order to stop by at Hard Rock Cafe in Osaka, and get to the next destination early enough to have some time in a swimming pool.

8:30 – breakfast, a part of the hotel package.  It was an average breakfast, I think, except for one thing – the server gave us free green tea ice cream.  She heard us talking in English, and wanted to give us a taste of Japan.

9:30 – We checked out and got to the train depot for the street car.  Waiting for the street car in the rain isn’t the most fun thing to do.  The train didn’t come for a while…

10:05 – We were back at Hiroshima station once again.  It was too late to catch 10:15 train at this point.  We had to wait until 10:48 for the next train.  We took this chance to take some pictures around the train station.

12:20 – We arrived at Shin-Osaka station.  There isn’t enough time to make a quick run to HRC.  Oh well.  Our next train leaves at 1:00PM.

3:20 – We arrived at Shirahama station, our destination for the day.  We waited for the ride from the hotel for a while.  It’s a pretty small place…

4:20 – We finished checking in to the hotel.  It’s another small hotel… but they have a swimming pool!  We took a quick dip before heading to the hotel’s onsen bath.

6:30 – Dinner time – make your own sushi.  They serve a plate full of fresh fish from the local sea, a bowl of vinegar rice and a bunch of nori sea weed.  It was soooo good.  Then we went to bed a little early to get ready for the long day the next day.

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