We recently purchased the iPhone on our cellular plan to avoid getting into arguments about, "Where should I go now?" and "YOU told me to turn here, now what should I do?" Best investment ever! We just plugged the address in to the GPS and we were set. Neo Park is in the city of Nago, about 30 minutes on the expressway (with Jason driving) from our house. We had to drive through these amazingly long tunnels that basically went through a mountain side. It was scary under there. Claustrophobic. I wanted to get through them as quickly as possible. They were just digging through mountains all over the place up there. No biggie. This mountain might not collapse on me or anything while I'm operating this large tractor INSIDE a mountain. That is not the job for me, let me tell you!
Anyway - we arrived 15 minutes after they opened and about 10 minutes before our friends arrived so we had some time to check out the grounds before actually going in.
This is the entrance way. Who knows what it says in kanji. I'm guessing, "Neo Park." Pretty good, huh?
This was a little bit of the water way that loops inside the zoo. We didn't know it then, but it was foreshadowing of what was to come.
We bought our tickets at the front desk. Jason paid for us first. After Ben and Taylor got their tickets they bought 3 bags of bird food. We thought they were crazy. Taylor informed us that she had done some research and it was worth the investment! So, we bought 3 bags too. Good thing because this happened...
By the way, this picture does not do it justice. We were the first ones there I think and these birds were HUNGRY. They followed us everywhere. Good thing we got all that bird food! There were all different kinds of birds. I would name them, but I can't read any of the signs. All I know is there were birds everywhere and it lasted FOREVER!
After the birds there was this weird fish tunnel. It was really murky and gross and only one side of it was filled up. It looked like big, nasty carp to me. Oh and a huge giant catfish. Pretty weird.
Next we were on our way to the petting zoo area. Again, we didn't know what to expect, but I don't think anyone would expect this.
That's right! Dogs. The top picture is of some small dogs that you could actually go into the enclosure. So weird. These dogs didn't seem as pathetic as the larger dogs. I took a picture of the best looking one. There were 4-5 dogs tied up to hitching posts out in the sun. There was a Shiba-Inu that its teeth were so messed up it looked like a weird Halloween mask or a cruel joke. There was a Beagle with weird tumor/skin tags hanging all over its body. It was happy though. I guess it doesn't have a mirror to see its weird growths so why should he care? there was a Dalmation that was pretty normal looking and this guy. He was cute. You could take the dogs for a walk if you wanted. I'm not sure if it cost more money or not, but here's one Asian rocking it out.
I wonder if it poops while you're walking it, if you have to pick it up.
There were all sorts of things to pet here. Rabbits, turtles, a Shetland Pony. Llamas, capybara, goats, etc. Here is a picture of the jerk goat who head-butted my baby!
Colton got to sit on a turtle and feed a capybara. Capybaras are these huge rodent like creatures. I don't know if I've ever seen one before. Jason was obsessed with this thing. For those of you who don't know, Jason REALLY wants to get a pet out here for Colton. Colton does love animals, but he has a dog. His name is Chump and we love him soooo much! Love you Chumpy! Needless to say, we will not be getting any pets. Jason wanted to know if people keep these as pets. He thought they seemed pretty calm and when we were leaving we noticed one was doing his business in a litter box. Capybara 1, me 0.
Next we were off to another enclosure. This one was pretty cool. It had peacocks and Emu. All the normal birds we had been seeing all over this land, but this enclosure also had these cool little wallaby guys. The peacocks were being mean to him whenever we tried to toss him some food. Jason handled that.
He was doing the Cesar Milan move. You know the one. Where you push your tongue up against the back of your top teeth and hiss like a snake. Yep, this is my big brave Marine, scaring peacocks.
We saw some wild boars too. This is funny because of the expressway there are signs like we have in Wisconsin with a picture of a deer jumping, only here they are pictures of cartoonish looking boar with the bold phrase "ANIMAL" written beneath it. They were pretty cute. Look at this little noses!
This is the sign outside the Lemur area. Funny translations. I'm just glad they attempt it. Then I have some idea of what is going on. Sometimes the translation is so bad, you still don't know.
There was monkey island in the middle of the lake. It was sort of sad. There was just this one little house and a bunch of monkeys. Seemed sort of like Alcatraz. The boys liked the monkeys. Colton loves his plastic bottles by the way.
I don't know if you can tell in this picture but on the far left hand side there is a separate tank. On our way out of the "gift shop" to get on the train there was a lady. I'm not sure how it came about, but all of a sudden we were all out on the balcony looking into the tank and she was banging incessantly on the metal railings. I thought she was crazy. She was doing it for quite some time and pointing into the water. There was nothing there that I could see. Nevertheless she continued banging on the rails. Sure enough, a HUGE black and red fish surfaced for a few seconds and then plunged again to the bottom.
Some rare fish from somewhere. Again, who knows. I don't know what she was saying. She was nice though. We smiled, bowed and were on our way. We had a train to catch!
Before boarding the train we had some time to kill until the next engine came around. There was a little area for the boys to play and some food vendors. Jason was starving and went to get some food. He came back with a hot dog with some animal's bone sticking out of it. He came over by me and said, "Look at this! Try it!" Pass. Needless to say he said it was gross and didn't finish it, which is saying something because Jason eats almost everything he pays for. He also bought delicious Okinawan donuts with pineapple chunks in the batter. Hot out of the grease and just cool enough in time to keep the boys occupied on the train ride.
The train took us all through the park. Mostly everything we had already seen, but it was a nice way to wind down the day. Over all - I think we will be back to Neo Park in the future.
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