One way to celebrate

In Japan people celebrate "Son's Day." It is now more referred to as "Children's Day" as we shouldn't be gender specific in the celebration of children. It is toward the end of "Golden Week." Golden week proves to be the busiest time of the year here on Okinawa. Traffic is astronomical, beaches and parks are overly crowded, restaurants take reservations. In other words, for us that are here year round, generally we stay in the house. I saw in one of the local newpapers that is translated to English that there was a "Adventure Land" going on a few days this week and luckily, I saw it just in the knick of time. The last day it was open. So, Colton and I loaded up the burley (mostly to avoid traffic and parking delays) and headed on over. Another lucky thing, its not too far.
There were tons of things to do. You could view dogs and cats. (I didn't take a picture of the dogs, Colton wasn't too thrilled about them). There were 3 cats in cages like pictured below. So strange.

In the flyer given to us at the entrance there were pictures of penguins. My friend and I both assumed it would be a penguin bounce house or something similar, nope. Wrong again.

There were also your normal bounce houses, complete with Thomas the Train and Spiderman, totally normal and expected at a Children's Day celebration. There were a few things a little out of the ordinary, too. Trampolines, Ping-Pong tables, nail painting and body art station.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

There were also remote control cars to drive and actual cars to drive.

 

 

 

There were baby chicks that you could pet and pick up to play with. No hand-washing station in sight I might add. Our friend Luke even came to see them with us.

 

 

 

 

 

There were outdoor swim areas and kiddie pools, too. There were kids everywhere. I know this is weird, but I can't help but think about how much pee is in those pools. Ick . This after I let my kid touch the world's saddest, dirtiest looking little chickies. Needless to say, we didn't swim.

 

 

 

Oddly enough, right next to the swimming area, there was a sledding area. That's right. Snow. Sledding. Snow-ball fights. Colton wanted to go down the hill so badly, but couldn't muster up the guts. So, he did the walk of shame not once, but twice. Colton's friend Luke went down and he said it was fun, though! Colton wanted to keep his 2 feet firmly planted on the ground and just make snow balls and chuck them at the walls. Doesn't this kid know his family roots are from Wisconsin? The snow finally just melted there... yesterday.

 

 

 

 

There were craft stations, too. Mostly with sand and glue, not made for a 2 year old, we skipped that. There was a strange "game" next door, though. For 3 tickets you could give it a try. You were given a bowl and 2 little "nets." The catcher part was made of thin paper so after you dunked it into the water a few times, you weren't able to catch any more of the item you were trying to catch. Let me tell you, there is absolutely no skill needed for this game. There were 2 choices of prizes to try to catch. Goldfish. Live, swimming goldfish or bouncy balls. Kids were walking around with bags and bags of goldfish. I can't imagine that they had enough fish bowls to be keeping all of these fish. I don't think they're tasty, although I've never tried them. I can only imagine being their mother and thinking, "What am I going to do with these?" In fewer words, we chose to win bouncy balls. Needless to say we now have about 20. Yay us!

 

 

 

There was of course typical Japanese Festival food available as always. Colton got to have a chocolate covered banana.

 

 

 

By far, Colton's favorite thing was seeing the "Happy Feet." Although, afterward he couldn't stop saying, "Mommy hates Happy Feet show." I thought it was true and I didn't correct him.

 

On our way out, we stopped to get one more special Japanese traditional toy. They'll put anything on a leash these days. Happy Children's Day!!