Earthquakes and Bird Flu

Well I officially have been in my first real earthquake, and I slept through the entire thing. For those of you that know me well, I am sure you are NOT surprised. To my credit it was early in the morning though. At about 5am there was an earthquake that measured 6.2 on the richter scale. That's a pretty sizeable earthquake. I didn't even know about it until I saw it on CNN. I was talking to some people in the chorus and they said that they felt light tremors that lasted for about 30 seconds.

Today I went to the Kobe bird sanctuary. I know, I know, what about the man-eating deer? I was pretty tired today after walking so much yesterday so I decided to take it easy on my last day here in Kobe. Tomorrow we travel to Tokyo for the rest of our trip. I am really excited about Tokyo, I have heard that it is crazy there. Oh yea, the bird sanctuary (damn ADD). I had a great time. It was more of a bird free for all then a sanctuary. The building that it was in was like a giant greenhouse. They had it separated by netting and doors in between each "exhibit." I say "exhibit" because there were only 4 different areas with all of the birds roaming free in each area. The only thing that they really kept in cages were the owls. They had a TON of owls. I would have to say I saw at least 25 different kinds. And I even got to hold one as you can see here. I am also very excited because I figured out how to put videos into my blog through youtube. So here is a little video of the owl show that they did. Who knew owls spoke Japanese?

They also had a ton of beautiful flowers. I have no idea what kind they were, but some of them were huge. I really liked the flowers that were hanging down like this one. If anyone knows if you can get these in the states lemme know, I really like them.

In one of the other areas they had birds flying all over the place. I am not sure what they were but they reminded my of Toucan Sam, so I guess they are some kind of Toucan. They had little cups of fruit that you could buy for 100 yen and the birds would come over to you and eat it out of your hand. I could not believe how gentle they were at picking up the tiny pieces of fruit with those giant bills. Here is a picture of me holding one. Apparently he is the only one in the room that lets anyone hold him. They even had penguins that just wondered around in their little area too.

Tonight is the first game for Japan in the World Cup. They are playing Australia who is making their first appearance in the World Cup in 32 years. Well the hotel decided to send good vibes and prayers to the team via fireworks. They invited all hotel guests on to the 4th floor at 8pm tonight to watch the fireworks. We all gathered at 8pm and at about 8pm and 32 seconds it was over. I only hope the Japanese will last longer in the match. They are being led by Naohiro Takahara otherwise known as "The Sushi Bomber." The game is at 10pm tonight and I am planning on watching the game either in the bar at the hotel or I may be brave and venture downtown. This video literally started right at the beginning of the fireworks and then the video ends about 1 second before it was over.

Well that's it from Kobe. I had a great time and enjoyed my stay here.

See you in Tokyo...