Higashi-Izu

It was a weekday at the beginning of August, and the park was mostly filled with families with children. It seemed to be feeding time around 2pm, coinciding with the manatee explanation, and Junto was engrossed in his favorite carrots. They said it takes two hours for him to eat, but after the carrots were gone, he reluctantly ate bok choy, cabbage, and finally Chinese cabbage. Perhaps because tomorrow is his body scrub day, when we revisited just before closing time, he was constantly rubbing the right side of his body against the bottom of the glass. He was also rustling his fins around his armpits; I wonder if he was itchy. The tank is smaller than the one in Toba, but there seems to be space in the parts that aren't visible. He came out from here and came up for air every two or three minutes, showing us so close that his breath fogged up the glass. The popular fruit parlor is located in the annex, about a three-minute bus ride uphill from the main park where the manatees and crocodiles are. The bus came right away, so there was almost no waiting time. The only thing to note is that the entrance to the fruit parlor is quite far away. This annex is the very last stop on the park's route, and the regular route involves going over stairs and other obstacles, so even though it's visible from the entrance, it's quite a detour. At the parlor, I had a limited-quantity special pork curry. It's made by a chef with experience in Kagurazaka, and the bananas are skillfully scattered throughout, making it undeniably delicious. The juice that came with the set was freshly squeezed and had a nice pulp texture. The famous banana crocodile daifuku is also high-quality, not just cute, as it's filled with incredibly sweet bananas grown on the premises. There was a crane game on the first floor of the same building with a daifuku plushie keychain, and I really wanted one, so I tried five times but was unsuccessful. Incidentally, the banana crocodile daifuku plushie is not sold in the souvenir shop and can only be found here in the park. So frustrating! The crocodiles are also cute, of course. It's a highlight to see one of them occasionally opening its mouth wide and looking very comfortable. There's a fence, but you can see them well through the gaps in the mesh. While there are undeniable inconveniences such as the difficulty of walking due to overgrown tropical vegetation, numerous stairs, and many slopes, the entrance fee is well worth it just to see the charming Amazonian manatees.

We went to see turtles. To our surprise, there were turtles everywhere, far more than we expected, and we had a great time touching them! It's hot in the summer, but we definitely want to go again! The kids were a little scared though, haha.

He was very consistent with showing up whenever we needed him to and brought us to the exact places we were looking for during our trip! He was also very kind and understanding throughout the 2 days we had him. He let us have drinks and snacks in the car also which was very considerate. Lastly, he had to adjust to a sudden schedule change because we wanted to go to a location that wasn’t planned, but he took us there with no trouble! Overall, I couldn’t ask for a better driver, Sun made our two day trip go really smoothly!