JAF Day at Kamogawa Sea World

Today we took a trip to the coast to visit Kamogawa Sea World. We had tried to visit here back during Golden Week but we met too many crowds to try to get in. This weekend was the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF: Japan's AAA) Day. As a result we were able to get a discount on our tickets.
The best show of the day was the Killer Whale Show. These are great looking animals that are just so impressive to watch that you wish you could someday see them in the wild one day chomping on a seal.

The trainers were pretty impressive too. The oldest one could ride his whale all the way to the bottom of the tank with one breath of air and then be launched out of the water on the whale's nose.
Anna loved the all of the shows and, as usual, she was immediately drawn to the characters walking around the park.

The Beluga Whale show was also pretty neat too. They demonstrated how they could do echo location to find different materials and could also communicate to each other through the water.

We are planning to come back here with Mom when she gets here from the USA. The plan is to take a trip to Mother Farm (See previous post), stay the night somewhere and then get to Kamogawa early enough to see the dolphin show at 930am (We missed that show today).

Anna's 7-5-3 Ceremony

We went back to my wife's hometown of Matsusaka for my daughter's Shichi-Go-San ceremony. This is a time for little boys and girls aged 3, 5 and 7 to go to the shrine and be blessed for the coming years. My daughter's ceremony is actually coming one year late since we were just moving here from the USA last year.

My mother in law bought my daughter a very beautiful and quite expensive kimono for the ceremony. She was able to celebrate with her cousin Momo also.

I was floored at how beautiful she really looked. That Sunday morning all the women in the house left to get their hair styled for the ceremony. Once everyone was ready we all went to the nearby photo studio to get our family pictures.
The kimono was exquisite. The detail on just the red inner lining was just right for my little girl. After the ceremony the journey back to the house was made more difficult in the fact that Anna could no longer walk in the beautiful sandals her grandmother gave to her.

As a result I had to carry her back. You will not believe how heavy a 4 year old can be until you try to lift her wearing one of these.
For the complete set of pictures please take a look at the Picassa photo link to the right.

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