Kachoen (Flower and Bird Park) + Other Fun!

One of my students was nice enough to invite me to go with her, her friend, and Gary to the Bird and Flower Park. It took about 45 minutes to get there via car and we had a BLAST! You were walking around with and touching and feeding ALL the animals (though I drew the line at feeding the penguins what looked like sardines, LOL!)!! I also avoided the emus (who grabbed the food too quickly for my tastes and even took a nip at one of the girls!) but I fed the cutest, BRIGHTEST birds pieces of chopped up apples! A bird even landed on my shoulder but took off as soon as it realized I was out of food!! Sadly it was too quick to get the camera going. They were great! And there were DOZENS of different kinds of owls!! I immediately thought of you, Marci!! =D

You could eat beneath a FOREST of hanging flowers that were gorgeous but I spent a lot of time ducking, LOL! I've never seen anything so thick and plush as that "ceiling" of greens, pinks, and purples! I'm sorry my camera couldn't capture its true ferocity and beauty!

Funny side note! It turns out that one of the teachers who only comes to Hamamatsu one day a week (she's so nice!) is married and her husband is English and runs the bird show at the Park!! (He's in the later pictures.) He was nice enough to answer all our questions and let us watch while he fed the macaws! He told us that a place like this doesn't exist in England anymore because of the fear of disease from touching the birds. Luckily there were plenty of places to wash our hands throughout the day!

The penguin behind the park's front desk slayed me! He was just tottering around and decided he would start nibbling at the files under the desk, LOL! (See one of the later pictures below!!) I took over 120 pictures throughout the day but these are by far the best! ENJOY!!

P.S. Yes, a lot of the birds wear leashes which made me sad at first but I was assured that owls (the only birds on the leashes) only fly for 10 minutes per day or so anyway, and that's just to get food. Mostly they just chill so that's all they're doing now. I felt much better after that! =D