Attractions

Third Anniversary at Umihotaru and Mother Farm in Chiba

3 December 2015

Every year, we celebrate our wedding anniversary by doing something related to water (1st | 2nd). For our 3rd anniversary this year, we took the Tokyo Bay Aqua Line with a stopover at Umihotaru (lit. sea firefly).

Could barely keep my eyes open because it was such a sunny day! As for Fu, that’s his usual smiling face, sun or no.

You might have also seen these on my instagram, but including it here because they’re so pretty! (and therefore on instagram…)

I blogged about Tokyo Bay Aqua Line previously so I will skip the introductions. I’m just so pleased that the weather was perfect this visit! Leaving Umihotaru, we then continued down to the other end of the highway arriving at… Mother Farm in Chiba!

“Mother Farm is the most popular entertainment farm since 1962. Tasty ice-cream, delicious foods and fun events. Popular destination from Tokyo metropolitan with the easy access.”

I enjoy visiting places like these; farms, zoos, aquariums, parks, etc. and I’ve been wanting to come to Mother Farm for a while since it’s pretty famous. So when Fu was organizing our anniversary celebration (at my request), he decided on Mother Farm! He enjoys such places too, but probably more because of his awesome companion lol.

The park is really big, and has lots to do!

It also boasts some really scenic views!

Purchase goat feed from a vending machine!

The petting area where one can get up close and personal with the animals!

KUROBUTA!!! No eating please.

These tortises look quite tramatized, with their faces squashed against the bench, like they were forced into a corner by all the grabby hands… but if they really didn’t like it, they could hide in their shell… right?

There was a capybara!!! Which is the largest rodent in the world btw.

It came out of the enclosure for a walk!

One thing I love visiting in Japan are the souvenir shops:

Everything is so cute and prettily packaged! I almost always end up buying something from these shops. Even one piece of postcard also happy haha. (WTH I’m going to do with all the postcards I’ve accumulated though, I have no idea >_<;;)

There were some parts of the farm that made us slightly… should I say uncomfortable?

There was supposed to be a tour for the cows area, but upon seeing this sight – the way they were chained up and the skin hanging off their rack of bones – we changed our minds.

When I googled later, it seems that it is common for dairy cows to be skinny because they direct all the calories towards milk production, unlike beef cows that direct calories towards building muscle. Therefore “skinny” cows are not necessarily in poor health; their bodies are just configured differently from cows reared for the meat.

We might have learned that bit of information had we gone for the tour… but at that moment we weren’t up for it.

We also spotted some really skinny horses:

These horses are for riding (1000yen for 5 minutes or something like that), and before we saw them, Fu was thinking of riding on them. But after we saw them, I told him to spare them. His legs look stronger than theirs!

Not sure if there’s a reason behind these skinny horses. Google didn’t provide any insight.

We then went on to a pretty cute event: Piggy racing!

Yes, not horse racing, but pigs!

So here’s how pig racing goes:

1. Place a bet

Place a bet by purchasing a piggy plushie with the corresponding number. It costs 500 yen and if the pig you chose comes in first, you win a large piggy cushion! Lol.

2. Pick the “jockeys”

Jockeys are picked randomly via a ballot system and entry is open to kids 12 years and below. There are a total of 6 pigs, and a total of 4 rounds, thus the 24 kids in the photo.

When they were picking out the kids for our number, we kept mumbling “Pick an older kid, pick an older kid… Noooooooo! Is she even 6 years old?” Hahaha.

3. Race!

So what the kid had to do is gently smack the butt of the pig so it will move forward. It was really hilarious because after the gates opened, most of the pigs just leisurely strolled out, loitered around, and sniffed the ground. Few hundred people looking at them and the kids desperately trying to get them to move, but they are totally not interested LOL.

When the staff guided the kids and they begun smacking the butts in earnest, some of them moved along pretty easily. Ours, unfortunately, had a penchant for the tires and ALWAYS stopped there and sniffed for half a lifetime -_-

But it was good fun! And the piggy cushion was quite ugly anyway #notsourgrapes #thetruth

The cute thing is that the jockeys of the champion pigs were given a gold medal and stood on the platform (the one with the stars) and gave a small speech on how they felt winning! Haha, too cute!

The farm also had several huge dog runs with really nice fields! (grass is kind of uncommon in Japan)

The kind of place I’d love to bring Milk Tea!

And then check out this horse that has better hair than me FML.

We wandered into the entertainment area where there was a giant water slide and even bungee jumping!

I decided to go for…

TADAHHHH.

Took every ounce of focus and balance.

But to be honest, 99% of the time, I was like:

Lol. Super unglam.

I scared everyone away with my mad skills! (or maybe it was just the mad alone)

Bungee jumping tower in the background! Sorry, no caption for the foreground.

We then went for a “Sheepdog and his friends” show. At first the stage was all dark, then the screen parted to reveal a backdrop of the farm.

There was nothing there, but as we looked on, we spotted a sheepdog in the distance, chasing after a herd of sheep and they were all running towards us!

Talk about dramatic! But it worked. And it was very nicely executed indeed!