Tennoji Zoo & A Visit to Matsushita Hospital

We can tell you are sensing a trend here. Ilena and the kids go off and do cool touristy stuff. Mike goes to work (interesting in its own right - trust me - but not your standard blog material). Well, here we go again. Today, Ilena, Jacob and Lauren hopped on the subway and headed to the Zoo. Tennoji Zoo is your pretty standard run-of-the-mill zoo, but they had some different animals that we hadn't seen before, like Japanese Deer, tons of different types of Monkeys, and Red Pandas. They also made friends with a drunk homeless zoo wanderer guy.


Meanwhile, Mike got to go to Matsushita Hospital for his medical check-up. It was pretty in-depth. But since he's not yet 35, he avoided the need to drink the shot of barrium for the upper GI light-up exam.

After work, we all met and went out for dinner to an Okanomiyaki restaurant. It was damned tasty - like a cross between an omelette, matzo bri, and pancake, but with savory ingredients and a sweet sauce. Its a specialty of this region. Jacob wasn't a big fan, but we liked it!

The kids are now very into counting to ten in Japanese, which they do at the top of their lungs, especially on the subways, which are notoriously silent. Everyone gets a good laugh at them. They also watch some Japanese cartoons and kids shows, which are apparently universally incomprehensible, because they seem to enjoy them as much in Japanese as they do in English! At our hotel, where we have to hand in our key to the front desk and retrieve it when we return, the front desk are now used to Jacob or Lauren running in for the keys. They even smile, and we haven't been kicked out yet!