We went to the zoo a few weeks ago, which was a blast! Officially called the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens, it’s a fairly cheap place (only about $6) to spend a day on the weekend, and we had a lot of fun.

It was definitely a place more for kids than anything else, as the entrance itself boasts a large children’s area and there were many more parents there than kids our age. Elephants, wolves, reptile house, nocturnal animals house, gorillas and monkeys. It was also pretty interesting trying to decipher descriptions of animals, and how some had names in katakana from English, while others had their own names in Japanese.

Wicked

Another weekend, the IES group went out to see Wicked in Japanese! To be perfectly honest, I was excited to see a production, but I did not harbor much thrill to seeing Wicked. I always found the songs irritating and the story dull. The book alone was enough to put me off the entire idea of Wicked. However, Japanese Wicked blew me away. It was absolutely brilliant. The set, the costumes, the actors. It was surreal to hear it all in Japanese, to be able to understand so much, and still enjoy the story. It was very well done and I’m glad we got the opportunity to see it.

Unfortunately, I doubt i’ll be able to see another production while i’m here, being that tickets are actually ridiculously expensive, but I’m glad we had this chance, regardless.

Location: Higashiyama, Nagoya, Japan