Fox Park....

This will be the last "catch-up" post before I start you on the journey that is the amazing summer vacation Nikki and I had.  I don't know how I am going to sort through all the awesome pictures to show you all, but I will try to stick to the most beautiful, and I will try to include some of either Nikki or I.  

So this post is about 6 July.  Julia, Tati, Kolby, Geng (I am spelling his name wrong, I am sorry), and I headed south of Sendai to the border of Yamagata and Miyagi prefectures.  It took us nearly three hours to get to our destination, and since Kolby and Tati stopped in Sendai to pick up Geng, it took them longer.

Our destination was the Fox Park.

Tati had learned about it through another ALT, who had posted pictures of himself holding a fox.  We were immediately excited and knew it was something that we had to do.  Sadly, there was less holding, and more just walking around with the foxes, but I am getting ahead of myself.

 
When we first arrived, and all of us had managed to get there safely, we entered the park to find a bunch of foxes in cages.  They had foxes from all over the world, and we were just content to look at them all.




 
The black one in the picture below kept running into the view of the camera as I tried to get the brown fox behind him.  So cute!


 
Quickly becoming sad that we could not pet the foxes, we headed over to the bunny pen and hung out with the rabbits for a bit.

 


It was in the bunny pen that Geng pointed out the large area we had not ventured to yet.  It was through the gate that we finally got to see what we had wanted.  Free foxes roaming around.  Though we couldn't actually touch them--they are wild animals, after all, it was nice just to walk around with them.




Julia asking a fox why it is resting in a cage when it is free to roam.

 

One approached me and used my leg to balance as he tried to sniff my hand.  When I didn't produce any food, he pulled on my pants.  I tried to tell him I wasn't food, but he seemed determined.
 
I am not sure how long we spent wandering the open cage of the fox park, but when we re-emerged, it was time for them to feed the animals.  Once the lady had finished feeding the bunnies (which we happily watched), she took us over so we could pet one of the foxes. 


It was soooooo cool!  At this point I realized, I have pet a shark, a porcupine, a stingray, held a stickbug, and now a fox.  I swear there is something else in there, but I cannot remember at the moment.

After the fox park, we headed for food, and then made the long trek back to Ishinomaki.  I think the return trip only took us two hours.  It is amazing what effects traffic and road work can have....