Bullet Train.......AWAY!!!!

Yesterday was a big day trip and my first time on the bullet train. We went to Kakagawa, which was an hour and a half ride by bullet (6 hours by normal train) and cost us around $500 round trip. On the way I got to see Mt. Fuji for the first time, which was beautiful but some cloud cover was troublesome. When we arrived in this little town, we realized that we had not dressed warm enough by any means and froze stiff rather quickly. We were going to have a nice lunch at a hotel Dad knew of, but they were a bit too authentic Japanese for us and only served a lunch set, which means you get very little say in what they bring you. So, we decided to do an activity and hopefully find a restaurant somewhere later. Our 2 choices were seeing a palace or a bird sanctuary. I declared, BIRDS! and it was the best choice ever made. It wasn't too far of a walk and we didn't even really get lost. We went into a building that was a big gift shop and all along the walls were glassed in cages of beautiful owls! They even had a hedwig one. We paid $10 a head to go in and at the front desk I was studying a beauty bird that looked like a falcon of some kind and soon realized it was alive! We walked into an open air spot with 2 ponds of water and ducks were wandering everywhere along with penguins! A woman working there pulled a penguin out of the water and it walked up to me and I got to pet it. The ones swimming in the water would come by and I could rub their backs as they passed, how cool is that?!?!? The rest of the sanctuary was consisted of several large greenhouse structures. Birds would fly about as they wished and if they let you, you could touch or even hold them. All sorts of beautiful exotic birds, parrots, peacocks, etc. I got to hold a toucan, touch flamingos, and hold some other birds that I didn't even know what they were called. As we were leaving, I realized that there was a penguin behind the front desk with a little bed and one of the women came out scolding it in Japanese because it had tracked poo everywhere, it acted all ashamed too, it was so cute!! It was by far the best experience I've had here so far. Dad even got me a stuffed owl that gives a little hooting sound when you squeeze it, which is what mom woke me up with this morning. I know I know, I'm too old for stuffed animals, but I don't care!! Afterwards, wasn't so great because we couldn't find anywhere to eat and ended up in a coffee place full of smoke where no one spoke english. I had a slice of chocolate cake for lunch, healthy gal. We rode back and had dinner at a far better place so overall it was probably our best day trip we've had so far. They all tend to go a bit sour by the end, but this one will be fondly remembered.