A trip to Sea Paradise

Just one stop away from our neighborhood train station is Kanazawa-Hakkei station. We met some friends from the base there this past weekend and took a short ride to 'Sea Paradise'.

It's a SeaWorld sort of place, with lots of large tanks full of the kind of things Allan just loves to observe. A young MLC (master labor contractor - or Japanese national), Hiroko and her sister were in the party. Each had a son, so we had two children with us.

Another member of the group was Ryan Hevener, a young sailor who works with Allan's group. He and Allan are in the May 30th, Allan Rides Again issue, sitting on the bronze bear.

The tanks were filled with an array of sea creatures which fascinated all of us. These fish are feeding on the plants here.

There was a show with gray dolphins, beluga whales (below) seals and walrus. Of course they all were very acrobatic and theatrical creatures.

Below a dolphin is flying high, wacking a ball with his tail fin. Of course he got a nice reward for his efforts, as well as accolades from the crowd.

After a few hours of shows and big and small creatures in tanks, it was time for lunch. This is my favorite part of any outing, and today we went to an Italian restaurant. It was in fact, the Japanese version of an Italian restaurant.

Dessert was an assortment of fruit and marshmallows which could be held under a chocolate fountain. Hiroko's son Hugo was indulged by his mother and got great pleasure from the chocolate covered treats.

Allan and I had our share, but our faces were clean, so... that would be an incredibly boring photo.

And lastly, this is our friend and Allan's Japanese teacher, Hiromi. She speaks English well, and says she learns more by watching American tv shows.

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Here we have few English channels, with an abundance of NCIS, CSI Miami, CSI NY, Cold Case and MI5, (a British cop show) so I thought her exposure to everyday English must be limited. She responded by saying she knows what 'pedophile' means. She sometimes gets it mixed up with 'pedestrian'. Hey, how well do you speak Japanese?

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I'm going to Hong Kong Thursday, so I'll be letting you know how I liked it very soon. Stay tuned.