Today, Ueno Zoo showcased the largest bird collection we've ever seen. So many beautiful types of birds from all over the world. From love birds to condors to vultures. To lions, bears and hippos, oh my! Rhinoceros and polar bears, too! Little to say, June and I were in awe; sad, though, to see some of the creatures in small cages, but hopeful they had reason to be there.
- tons of trash and recycling bins at the Ueno Park
- the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom
- the happy couple :)
- funny bird names
- a monkey entertaining himself
- prettiest Mandarin duck i've ever seen other than the wood ducks
** for more animal pictures -be sure to check my Picasa link from an earlier posting
- my first encounter 0f green tea gelato
- my first encounter of green tea soft serve (yes, one after another)
- my dream come true!
Afterwards, we rushed back to Kashiwa station to go to the supermarket in the basement floor. As we shopped, the produce employees were yelling all sorts of things...we finally figured out that they were marking down prices on produce and announcing it loudly. This one guy had a shrieking voice that freaked us out, we wondered how he made that sound. We bought ground pork, which I counted on my fingers in Japanese to tell the counter person 'ichi, ni, san, 300g' and then counting again on my fingers to say 'ichi, ni, san, yon, 400g.' She laughed. We bought veggies, chicken, and pasta. We looked up the word for butter and asked a person where we could find the 'butta.' He pointed across the store, where we asked another lady, 'butta?' I picked up this package that looked like butter and the lady said something that sounded pretty close to margarine and pointed us to butter spread that was oishi. We found the block butter somewhere else, but our language barrier always leaves us laughing out loud.
After buying the groceries, we went up one floor to the desserts and pastry floor. We found a cake that was pink and celebrated the sakura, cherry blossom season. We told the cashier that we wanted one of those cakes by merely pointing with a smile and nodding. She brought out the cake and put it in a box. And then asked us something in Japanese, '...1 hour?' We didn't want it in an hour, so we told her in English, "no, now please." She asked again, and we replied the same way. We were thinking that maybe it took an hour to wrap it? or maybe there's a waiting time and they don't let us carry it out right away? We had no idea what the 1 hour was for! For about 5 minutes, we had the same back and forth of question and answer. Finally the lady next to us, who was just standing there the whole time, spoke to us in English, "she's asking you how long until you get home?' We said, "Oh! 15 minutes." The counter person wanted to know so she could put enough ice packs on the box to keep the cake fresh. Apparently all workers are strictly trained to recite the same questions and sentences whether or not the customer understands English. We stumped her so she was on "repeat". Thanks alot to the lady that was just standing next to us and probably laughing in her head. Too funny!
- it was actually a cheesecake
We got home and cooked for our homestay family. Pasta with bolognese sauce, cauliflower soup, chicken, garlic bread, and ratatouille (Yuki watches this movie every day). We just wanted to show them how thankful we were for their hospitality and generosity.
- 3 different types and colors of citrus with all different ranges of sweetness
- Yuki watching Ratatouille
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