On our last full day visiting California, Dan’s parents took us to the San Francisco Zoo because we all know of Mio’s love for animals! It was the first time visiting the SF Zoo for both Mio and myself, and Dan hadn’t been since he was a child, so it was a fun experience for everyone!
The San Francisco Zoo was definitely a nice zoo, with lots of animals to see! I can’t wait until the weather gets warmer so that we can take Mio to see the National Zoo in Washington, DC as well. 🙂
We spent a full day on Wednesday last week in San Jose, after moving out of our El Cerrito home, to spend some time with Dan’s parents before we left for the East Coast. We spent most of the late morning strolling around the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Jose, had lunch, and then walked over to neighboring Happy Hollow Park & Zoo to dedicate the afternoon to letting Mio have some fun at the kids park going on rides, playing on the playgrounds, and meeting animals there.
You could buy a handful of feed for the koi for a quarter, so we got some for Mio to drop into the pond. Here’s a video of Mio feeding the koi and ducks. She says “gwa gwa gwa” (the Japanese sound for quacking) when she sees ducks these days.
More quacking from Mio:
After eating lunch at the picnic tables, we walked over to Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, which is right next to the Japanese Friendship Garden.
A video of Mio on the Mini Putt-Putt Car Ride:
In the evening, we went to San Jose Japantown to have dinner at SJ Omogari Restaurant to have a delicious Korean dinner!
The day was a really memorable way to wrap up our time in California! We got to spend time with family, see beautiful sights, and Mio had a blast, too!
A couple snapshots from Thursday, when Mio and I got to spend the day with Megumi, Daniel, and Jenn. Mio especially loved visiting Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation — she loved seeing all the kitties and dogs!
The Marin County Fair is going on from June 30 to July 4, so we drove over to San Rafael yesterday so that we could give Mio her first taste of a fair. She was too young and short to go on the rides, but she still had a lot of fun with the farm animals that were there!
In the area with the farm animals, Mio got to see so many animals — rabbits, chickens, geese, sheep, turkeys, cows, goats, deer, horses, donkeys, alpacas, llamas, potbelly pigs, wallabies… there were so many that she got to see for the first time!
I think one of the highlights for myself personally was watching the potbelly pig race! I’d never seen a pig/hog race before, so it was actually really fun to watch!
There was a petting farm area specifically designed for little kids, so that they could go in to touch and feed the free-roaming animals. While Mio had been really brave up until then, trying to touch the animals inside their cages and pens, she suddenly became very timid when she was in an area where they weren’t behind bars.
We finally got her to willingly feed a little fawn, probably because she felt safe as it was one of the few animals that was caged in.
After Mio was done eating, we walked around to try some of the delicious fair grub ourselves…
With our tummies full, and our hearts warmed by all the cute animals, we headed home. It was a great first carnival experience for our little family! 😀
On Monday, my sister, father and I took Mio to a local pet store where they have puppies that you can play with in the store. Mio is really interested in dogs and other animals lately, so we thought she would have a lot of fun with them!
We chose a shiba inu puppy to play with, and got a playroom with him in! He was so adorable…
Shibas can be extremely hyper and overactive, though, and this puppy definitely had a lot of energy! It kept trying to jump on us and kept biting on the ends of our clothes and pulling… it was intense.
So playtime only lasted about ten minutes, but it was fun! We spent some time looking around the rest of the pet store together…
There was a frozen yogurt place nearby, so we went to Sweetberry for an afternoon snack!
I just noticed that day that Mio is starting to grown in four more teeth (her first molars) in addition to the eight teeth she’s already had for months. She’s had the central and lateral incisors for a while now, but she’s just starting to grow one molar on each side, on both the top and bottom (so one in each quadrant of the mouth). I’d heard that the first molars start to grow in at around 13 to 19 months, so she is right on schedule!
Monday was a bit cooler and cloudier compared to Sunday’s pool weather, so we couldn’t break out the baby pool again, but Mio still had fun romping around the backyard.
In the evening, Auntie Miwa wanted Mio to try on the new Harajuku Mini clothes and sunglasses we’d bought for her when we went shopping earlier in the day, so we had some dress-up time. Check this fashionista out! 😛
