Stumbling upon Activities

We spent the morning at Sunshine Aquarium again.  It is a fun place and since we bought the annual membership, it is free.  My son and I enjoy the various shows, like the diver in the large tank and the sea lion show.  He's remembering more and more of the fish names and each time we discover something new.  Today we were impressed with the cuttlefish, squid, sunfish, and leaf headed turtle. The pelicans swimming overhead is also fun to watch.

The nice thing about the aquarium being on the top of a mall, we have lots of options for lunch after  a nice day at the aquarium.  Instead of a food court, most Japanese malls have an entire floor dedicated to restaurants.  Typically you can choose from popular Japanese favorites like tonkatsu (pork cutlet), ramen, soba or udon noodles, Chinese cuisine, weird pasta dishes, and donburi (rice bowls with various toppings).  We went to lunch at my son's favorite omurice restaurant.  He gets so excited to eat there. 

After lunch we headed for the musical fountain that was so entertaining last time we went to the aquarium.  Today they were having a little celebration of sorts for... cleaning.  Seriously.  I don't get it.  I even asked my husband and he confirmed it was for cleaning.  But they had some musicians, tons of balloons, a couple games for kids to play, and even face painting.  It was entertaining, especially when they brought out the mascot that was part Baymax (from Big Hero 6) and part washing machine.  The poor guy in the suit had to waddle sideways because he was so inflated.

We also discovered a ¥300 store.  It is like a dollar store, but everything is ¥300 and the stuff is  higher quality.  You can get all sorts of things for your home.  They have a huge selection of socks and even Halloween costumes (which is very surprising).  They also had an aisle of kitchen wares that I avoided.  I bought fabric laundry baskets and a fabric toy bin for my son's toys.  I get way too excited about these stores.  We also wandered through the Disney store and Studio Ghibli store.

The weather has been a bit crazy lately.  Sunny and hot one day and pouring rain the next.  Today it was both - sunny in the morning and downpours in the afternoon.  It was pouring when we left the mall and made me upset that I didn't bring our umbrellas with to the aquarium, as we would need them to walk from the subway to the apartment.  But it was just starting to drip when we got back to Azabujuban, and we made it back with just a drip or two on our shoulders.  However, when we headed out to the grocery store a few minutes later... downpour.