Wild Kingdom Sanda: Part 4

Here is a little gecko I found crawling around in the classroom. I believe it's another Schlegel's Japanese Gecko. Cute little thing, ain't it?

I want to watch a warm human love triangle

Are you in "Awwwwwwww" overload yet? These two little guys were both orphaned last month and adopted by the Izaki City Zoo in Fukuchiyama. They've since become fast friends. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Here's the article:
福知山市猪崎の市動物園（二本松俊邦園長）にいる赤ちゃんニホンザルとイノシシの子・ウリボウが、奇妙な友情を育んでいる。2匹は互いに生後1カ月のころ、自然界で親と離れて保護された境遇が重なっている。ゲージから出すと、すり寄って仲むつまじい姿を見せる。
　
ニホンザルは親と死に別れ、ウリボウは1匹で溝にはまっていたところを救出された。2匹とも1カ月ほど前から動物園にいる。ともに愛敬があり、約1週間前に試しに近づけてみたところ意気投合したという。
　
二本松園長は「自然界では親同士が警戒するけど、2匹は飼育員が親だと思っているのかもしれませんね。当面はサル、イノシシ、人の温かい三角関係を見守っていきたい」と話している。

or as Google would have it...
Fukuchiyama 猪崎 City Zoo (Principal Kuni Takashi Nihonmatsu) is the son of Uri bow baby monkeys and wild boar, and has fostered a strange friendship. Two cats each other around the first month of life, protected circumstances are overlapping in nature away from their parents. And out of the gauge, harmonious snuck show up.

The monkey's death parents, Beau was rescued but Uri was in a rut in the dog. The zoo has about a month ago with two dogs. There is both love and respect that I just hit it off close to the test in about a week ago.

Nihonmatsu Principal said, "but naturally wary of each other parents, two dogs that I think might be the parent keeper. Meantime monkeys, wild boar, I want to watch a warm human love triangle" and said.

Oji Zoo

Yesterday Rin and I went to Oji zoo with the other Moms (Hachi, Yukari and Sayoko) and their babies (Yuuto, Fuuka and Yuito). Of course they all fell asleep the moment we got to the zoo's front gate! They all woke up a little later though and we had a good time looking at the animals. Here is a koala and I'll try to post some more pics on facebook once the camera battery finishes charging!

Wild Kingdom Sanda: Part 3

On the way back from the park we found this gross millipede and I thought I'd share the creepiness with all of you.

Wild Kingdom Sanda: Part 2

Today Rin and Rosie and I went to play in the park. We were sitting in the grass and soaking up the sun when what should we see but a lady with a lizard on a leash. (Try saying that 5 times fast). Of course I had to investigate, so I went up and said hello, and got the dirt on the lizard. It's name is Memeta, its sex is unknown, and apparently it's some type of monitor. How do you like that?

Snowball Fight!

In case you were in need of some cheer, here's your daily dose.

Four Eyes

Here's a cute dog I found on yahoo news. His eyes are closed, but he has an eye-like pattern in the fur on his eyelids. Pretty cute, eh?

Choco-baby

This Sunday we went to Stephanie's house to see the latest litter of lab puppies, and were they ever cute! Her dog Missy just had a litter of six, four boys and two girls, five black and one chocolate. They were only born a few days ago, so their eyes and ears were still closed tightly but they were sooooo sweet. Another one of her dogs, Tim-Tam is due later this week too, so they'll be swimming in puppies! The picture above is Sho-chan holding the one chocolate baby girl.

The Dog Days of Pregnancy

This Sunday Sho-chan and his mother and I went to Nakayama-dera to get my pregnancy belt (腹帯). It's supposed to protect the stomach while you are pregnant and help you have a safe and easy delivery (安産). You are supposed to begin wearing it on the Day of the Dog in your fifth month. Why the Day of the Dog you ask? Because dogs have many babies safely and easily and you can get a little bit of the dog's good luck by begining to wear the belt on their day.

Nakayama-dera is famous for its pregnancy belts, so there were a whole lot of pregnant ladies there, as well as many couples with tiny babies coming for their "thank you" visits after having a safe delivery.
Here are some photos:


This is Me and Shochan with our freshly purchases belt (it's hard to see because of the light, but the white thing I'm holding is an envelope with the belt, a lucky charm, a thank-you candle and some other things.


This is me with Sho-chan's mother. She is a very sweet lady and a good mother-in-law (and only about 4'11")


After we got the belt, we had lunch together at the noodle-shop in the temple. In the shop there was a pigeon that had somehow wandered inside.

Don't be too jealous, Erica....

今朝Rosieちゃんのお散歩で公園に行ったら、カブト虫を見つけました。そのカブト虫をタッパーで拾って、うちに持って帰って、これからホームセンターにカブト虫飼育セットを買いに行きます。
ちなみに名前はまだつけてませんので、ネーミングのアイデアを募集中です。よろしくお願いします。

This morning while taking Rosie for a walk in the park I found a beetle. I caught him in a tupperware container, brought him home and now I'm going to the home center to get a beetle raising kit.

S/he doesn't have a name yet, Any suggestions?

PS: We have chosen a name for the beetle: Kobayashi Takeru, in honor of the famous Japanese competitive eating champion.

And They're Off!

This Sunday Sho-chan and I went to the Hanshin Racetrack at Niigawa to watch the horse races with some of his friends from work. I'd never been to a horse race before, (although I did go to the boat races with Non-chan and Tencho a few years back), so I was interested to see what it was like. We went to the boat race as guests of a former boat racer, so we got to sit in the VIP area which was really nice and had free drinks, but the rest of the race course was dirty and filled with very creepy looking, obviously gambling-addicted, smelly old men. I was afraid that the horse races would be the same, but Sho-chan assured me that they were much cleaner and nicer than the boat races.

He was right, although there were some creepy oyajis around, it was mostly clean and nice and even had a nice gift shop where you could get handtowels and keychains and what-not with the track mascot 'Turfy' the racehorse (pictured above) on them. We had quite a fun time and I bet on a few of the races, mostly picking the horses by their names, the jockey's name or the fact that they had the same birthday (the horse) as someone I knew. I spent about ¥2,000 ($20) all told, and I actually picked two winners. Sho-chan and I kept our bets to ¥100 or ¥200 a go, but some of his co-workers put ¥10,000 on a single horse! I was shocked, but I guess whatever butters your toast is alright.



More Later! Goog Afternooner!

Schlegel's Japanese Gecko

Recently our house has been over-run by these little suckers. I've seen them on the veranda, behind the cabinets, in the plants, and most recently climbing up the kitchen wall. I don't really mind though, since they're kinda cute and they eat the bugs. In fact in Japan they're called 家守 or 守宮 (both pronounced 'yamori') which means 'protector of the house' and are thought to be protective spirits watching over the home.

Rosie!

As many people may already know, the orginal owner of Yes!, my friend Stephanie, is a dog-breeder and she kindly offered us one of her beautiful Chocolate Labs.

Well, yesterday Miss Rosie came to visit us for a sleepover party! We played together and went for a walk in the park (3 times!) She's super-smart and a real sweetheart and she'll being coming to stay with us for good some time in October. Yeah!

Attack of the Killer Bees

So the other day I went down to the mailbox to get my mail, and I heard some loud buzzing as I was taking out my letters. I reached back into the mailbox to get the rest of the letters, and then I jumped back about a foot in surprise and let out a loud yell. The buzzing was actually coming from inside the mailbox, and when I took a closer look, it seemed that some bees had set up a nest, INSIDE my postbox!

Needless to say this makes getting the mail a tad problematic, and yesterday I fished it out with a pair of tongs while standing a respectable distance away. Luckily Shoichi brought some industrial strength bee-killer around last night, so we should be able to get rid of the nest soon. And hopefully Shoichi will help me with the actual dispatching of the bees as well, since I'm a complete pussy when it comes to any kind of apiary extermination.

PS: Mad Props to anyone geeky enough to recognize this pic!

Japanese Bush Warbler

Spring has sprung and summer is fast on its way, which means it's just the right time of year for the Japanese Bush Warbler. I haven't actually seen one yet, but they're famous for their beautiful song: "Ho... Hokekyo..." which we can now hear pretty much constantly. It's really a lovely song, and hopefully I'll see one soon too, as they seem very cute with their jaunty yellow and green feathers.

Listen for yourself

here

OOooo Aaaaa! KI KI KI !!!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Things have been rather busy lately, especially with the (whisper) new boyfriend . We spent Golden Week driving around the Kansai and I finally got to go to Minou and see the famous Minou Monkeys up-close-and-personal.

I had heard rumors that the monkeys were pretty wild, but they seemed calm to me. Of course we were safe inside the car, so maybe it would've been different if we were walking around. We also saw the Minou waterfall, which was lovely; but we didn't get to eat any maple-leaf tempura because we went too late at night.

More later

Goog Afternooner

Wild Kingdom: Sanda

Today as I was biking back home from the gym, I saw the darndest thing: an otter.

I was biking across one of the bridges on the Muko River when I saw something scurry across the road. Unfortunately it ran into some bushes before I could get a good luck at it, but I'm almost willing to swear it was an otter. It was definitely a small furry mammal with short little stumpy legs and a long tail.

It was too small to be a tanuki and too low to the ground to be a cat, so I think it really was an otter, except; I just looked up Japanese otters on Wikipedia and apparently they're thougt to be extinct, with the last verified sighting having been in Kochi in 1979! I don't know what to make of it! It really wasn't the right shape to be anything but an otter, although Erica suggested it might have been a giant salamander... Let me know what you think!

Goog Niter!

A Shout-out to My Homey Fancy-L

I found this on the net somewhere (one of those 'wackiest photos of 2006' or something like that) a while ago and I've been meaing to post it for Luke. So here it is. This kid has gotten to realize his 'fantasy of going one-on one with a bear'. Are you jealous, Luke?

Death by Cuteness

Recently there hasn't been a whole lot of post-worthy stuff going on, so I've been slacking off on the blog a bit, but I feel like it's time for an update, so here are some super-cute baby pandas. You really need to watch the video because baby pandas make the cutest noise I've ever heard in my life. But be warned you may very well die of an overdose of pure unadulterated cuteness.

Links to a video of the pandas

Isn't he just so *CUTE*!

I don't remember where exactly I found this, but it's been sitting around on my desktop for a while, so I thought I'd share it with you guys and brighten your days a bit. Isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen?