Friday, August 20, 2010

Comprehensive Water Park

After our run of bad luck trying to go anywhere off-island, and then a day of lock down in the house, we decided to try to do something fun closer to home. 

There is a Japanese pool that I've heard is a great time for kids and adults, albeit there are many rules to follow.  We've been put off going before because of these rumored "rules", but after our week I was desperate.  We knew the rule most targeted to Americans is "no tatoos", which if you look around at the military population, excludes a lot of Americans!  If you can cover your tatoo up - by swim shirt, band aid or tape - you're fine, but if not, no admittance.  Apparently in Japan tatoos are associated with gangs so they are not looked upon favorably.

Here are the other rules we were presented with, printed in a nice color brochure, given to us by a very polite Japanese lady as we approached the ticket counter...



But as Stevie said, this is their turf and we have to play by their rules.  Turns out for how paranoid I was that Stevie was going to get called out of the pool for his small, uncovered tatoo on his ankle, I was the one who got reprimanded for having sunglasses on in the water without a strap!  So I got creative and borrowed the strap off of Emmy's goggles.  Looked silly, but worked!



Getting past all the rules, the pool was really fun.  There was a lazy river, two long twisty water slides, another fun slide, a great place for the kids to play and more. 




Cannon floating down the lazy river.  That's a waterfall, not rain!




These slides were made of concrete and were FAST!





And the weather was great - clear skies and lots of sunshine (which despite my diligent application of 60 SPF sunblock, the kids got seriously red).  And to top it off, I had borrowed Kelly's underwater camera so I was able to get some fun pictures of the kids (of course, this broke rule number 5, no bringing any electrical device into the water!)





Above water.

Below water.

3 comments:

  1. I love numbers 1 and 7 on the 3rd sheet- "the use of children" and pregnant women "not acceptable"!

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  2. Those "rules" are ridiculous and quite laughable. Thankfully, the Japanese are nice enough so you can get away with it. At least for a little bit. ;)
    Great pictures of the kids!
    AK

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  3. I love the water pictures!

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