The girl that is staying with us is Kristin. She is from Ohio and is being "home tutored" here in Japan. She is the daughter of a co-worker's of Bob's from Grass Lake, Michigan.

We went to the Zoorasia the other day and, boy, what an experience! We were given directions from the Intercontinental Hotel, where they were staying: 1) At 6:30 am take the hotel bus to the train station - 6 minutes (this is in Yokohama). 2) Take Tetsu-Line train to Sangyamme exit - on JR LINE - takes about 10 minutes. 3) Walk to shuttle bus - takes about 15 minutes. 4) Arrive at Zoorasia - from beginning to end you will be there in half an hour or so.

Well this gentleman had a few directions wrong and here goes with what we did and didn't do... 1) No problem waiting for the bus - only took about 20 minutes. 2) When the bus arrived, there were 60 people waiting for it and it only held 30 at most, so I made sure Kristin and I were at the front of the line! 3) We arrived at the bus station -- also a huge mall, so we had to walk around until we could find some sign saying which way to the JR train station. 20 minutes later, we found the train station, paid our money and got our tickets out of the wall-mounted machines, went inside, looked at all the gates for either the name of the train (Tetsu) or the name of the exit (Sangyamme). Neither were anywhere to be found, so after about 10 minutes of going from gate to gate to gate, I started to look for anyone that might speak English.

As luck would have it, a lady came up to us (probably because we looked so pathetically lost) and said she speaks a "little English" which means, A) she understands English very well and is not going to tell you or help you or, B) she speaks two or three words of English and does want to help you, but she will never understand what I am saying and be able to help at all. She led us back to the ticket desk, where the clerk refunded our money, since it turns out that we were in the wrong place altogether. This was NOT the JR train line station... we needed to go to the Tetsu train station (... sigh).

So okay, where is that Tetsu train line? Since I have never been on that one, she points the direction to us and says "bye bye". We walk for about 10 minutes and finally see a sign, Tetsu Line, Cool!! (We might just make this trip a success, after all), so we try following the signs.

I go over to look at the boards to see if there is any English at all and, of course, there was nothing on this board. So we go up the stairs where there were more boards and gates all around, but NO English. Well this time I know for sure that I have no idea which way/floor/gate to turn to and we don't know how much to pay for the tickets. We finally found an information booth hiding in the back corner (by mistake, I found it!), and the man inside says something to me in Japanese that I couldn't understand, then points in a direction that he expects us to follow. Ok, we will follow his finger like idiots (all the time, I'm thinking that we are going to end up in China or dead!).

We get our tickets, go through the gate and see... ummm... only seven different trains filling up with people (about this time I was wishing that I still smoked or drank). I take my trusty map and start going around, pointing to Zoorasia on the map with my finger, to everyone, until finally a lady says, "DTESS" train and points to an old green train in the corner.

This train looked like it was built in the 1890's. I thought, this is one heck of an experience (if we live through it. I think praying was appropriate at this point!). We jumped on the train before the doors shut and I started to look through the train to see if they had any sign of exits in English. Well It did, and we were on the right train!

After 8 stops we jumped out of the train at Sangyamme, walked to the end of the station and out on to the streets of Japan, and I am not kidding, we were SMACK in the middle of God only knows where, in a Japanese community, without signs of anything and especially not in English!!

Now I figured eventually that we would see something about a bus shuttle or where Zoorasia was - something - anything. We walked and asked directions from about 40 different people. They would just shake their heads and walk away or they would start pointing directions with their hands. After about an hour, I finally said, "Enough". I saw a taxi about two blocks away. I ran after it and made the driver stop (literally and physically).

I showed the taxi driver the map and said, "Zoorasia, Zoorasia" and after some 10 minutes of this, he says, "Okeeeay" and takes off with full power - going backwards. I grabbed the head rest to hold on to and thought, look at this - a Japanese 007! The driver then does a spinning-the-tires back turn around like we were holding a gun to his head or something and off we went!! I honestly had no idea if we would end up in Japan or elsewhere and with whip lash, no less. Guess what? What was only supposed to be a twelve minute walk or so, turned out to be about a half-hour ride with the Japanese James Bond!

If we'd have walked there, it would of taken up to two hours. And that's if we even knew how to get there, had we known where we were going to begin with. We arrived at Zoorasia finally... WHEW! (By the way - do you know how to tell that you have been in one place too long? When you swear you see a Japanese Ronald Regan... LOL)

It turned out to be an OK zoo. I don't think they take care of their animals very well though - that was very disappointing. The zoo, itself, was very clean, almost as if it was brand new or just opened. I did see, though, for the first time, a Red Panda (looks like a red raccoon), a spotted bear and the world's largest anteater. This will actually scare you - it was over six feet tall, about 10 feet long and U-G-L-Y!

After 3 hours of walking around the zoo, we had lunch - what the Japanese call lunch - don't ask, at least it was'nt swimming!

Now for the way home. They have this huge circle at the end/beginning of the park, with all bus stop signs on them, so what I did was wait for every bus to stop and then I went in the bus and asked and showed the driver where I wanted to go - to the Tetsu train station. Finally, at about the forth bus, the driver said, "Heeght" - so we got on this bus.

We arrived at the Tetsu bus station - whew what a relief! By the way, that James Bond 007 taxi ride cost us a whopping 67 bucks, compared to the bus rides which are only $2.10 (two hundred and ten Yen).

We got on the train. It is easy to get back to Yokohama, since it is so well known and the 2nd biggest city after Tokyo. We finally arrived back at Yokohama but it took us over half an hour to find out where we were supposed to go to pick up the bus ride back to the Intercontinental Hotel. We finally arrived back at the hotel after 4:00 pm. What a day!!!

And no more Zoo's / Zoorasia... After all this, you couldn't feed any animals or even pet them. Well, I am so proud of myself - I didn't hurt anyone and I didn't get kicked out of anywhere - including Japan!

(Cathy Sheaves and her husband, Bob, are stationed in Japan, where Bob's work has taken him, for an extended contract. Both Cathy and Bob are regular fixtures in our interactive chat room, DieselChat - overcoming the time difference between North America and Japan by chatting tomorrow while the rest of us are about ready for bed the night before, over here! Cathy and Bob own a vintage Flxible coach which they are converting into a motorhome.)