28th sept
bought the tickets for mother farm the day before from lawson. about 1450yen for a person with free ice cream.

got up around 830am to prepare to go mother farm. didn't have time for breakfast but we got onigiris at 79yen and bread for 69yen (so it's super duper cheap and good). it's a freaking 2 hour ride from misato though. managed to get the shuttle bus from kimitsu but it only starts moving around 1140am

eventually we managed to reach mother farm around 12pm.



first few animals that welcomed us at the door



the animals here are somewhat dirty and kinda stink. i think it would be a bad move to come in the summer. and this lamb looks injured, there's like houseflies over its bald spot. i was wondering if there's maggots inside.

and thus began our tour



we headed down to the stables


i think the animals are probably all underfed here, look at what the poor house was trying to do

there was also lots of kids drawing pictures of the animals

then we visited some lambs



you can buy feed from a box to feed them too


there's a kid who was trying to roll down the hill happily. so cute.

and there's lots of people bringing their cute dogs around, playing badminton or just picnicking.

we caught the duck march performance.

the duckherder (or whatever you call them) leads the ducks by throwing duck feed.

and i think they have been conditioned to move towards the bell when it's rung, because you get food at those places, and you will see ducks just trying to fly over to whoever rings the bell

after the performance, we saw a theme park in the farm too.





but of cos the rides look too lame and it costs money so we didn't try.
saw this dog bus which brings you around the farm, while barking (it's pretty noisy)

then we walked down this looooong hill to get to the cows. there's freaking huge spiders everywhere.

but the view is great



got our ice cream along the downhill stores. it's actually selling for 300yen each. i got blueberry one and atsu got a vanilla-blueberry twist


it's huge and delicious. yum. though the weather is cooooold.
anyway, at the cow farm, you can line up to squeeze milk from their udders.

but just look at the number of people who wants to do that...

so since it's impossible, we just took a look and went off

the cow stables stink big time by the way. i had to wrap my scarf around my face to stop the stink


then we went to the pig farm to watch a race.
there's interesting kids with makeshift doll hats


before the race starts, small pig dolls are sold for 500yen each, which acts like a bet. you buy the pig with the number of the pig which you think will win the race, and if you got it correctly, you get a big black pig as a reward. neat, except i can't think of anyone to give the pig to except my sister. hahaah


there's 4 races, and kids are invited to encourage the pigs to run to the end by patting their butt.


we watched 2 races, then got bored. visited a river with ducks and lambs roaming around
you see that flapping duck? its how you distinguish a male from a female. and it seems that female ducks quack a lot more than male ones too. urusai.


this pig has super hard skin and hair. scary

and there's a horse foal too

somewhere near the river, you can see a maze but we didn't go there cos it'll probably cost to get in. everything needs money here. sucks.

managed to take a photo while going back up the hills

grabbed a donut for 100yen which tastes pretty different from all the donuts that i've eaten. it's made from soybean.

watched the mongolians perform (singing and instruments) while waiting for our lamb show to start.

the way they sing is pretty special, and i bet no one can understand what they're saying. but the music is pretty nice.

one of the mongolians gave us the honor of singing a japanese song as well. doesn't it sound like a certain chinese song?

then it's the animal show. first a video is played.

a lamb runs out to get things started

and the curtain unfolds to reveal a part of the farm

lambs are introduced, which are chased around by a sheepdog

and this horse-lamb-camel lookalike animal

and ostriches!

they started to chase each other for some reason

a pig came out and gave a handshake to the shepherd guy (he seems to train all the animals there)

and a group photo


after the animal show was the lamb/sheep/hitsuji show featuring hitsujis from all over the world (mainly australia though)
the lambs will move to their respective position (because of the feed, of cos), but you get occasional lambs that eat other lambs' feed




can you actually tell the difference...?
the last lamb got to travel through the audience

and the completed set


then the shepherd guy dragged this kawaisou lamb... and told us that its bite doesn't hurt cos of some missing front teeth or something

then dragged it to this machine...

to begin shearing it

poor naked lamb

after that 3 dogs came out to round things up

they seemed to be pretty happy bouncing and sitting on the lambs


kids were again invited to feed some kid lambs

then the audience got to interact with the animal after the show ends. here's some closer views of them.



and the dogs were awesomely obedient



o-te!

playful dogs!

it was about 4pm already then. unfortunately, we missed our shuttle bus back to kimitsu at 4pm, so we had to wait till 5+pm for this temporary bus back to sanuki-cho. costs a freaking 470+yen. it's much more expensive and takes a longer time to travel back from sanuki-cho than from kimitsu. the whole ride took us 4 hours and 1620yen because we had to wait like half an hour while changing trains each time, and we changed trains for like 3 times. we spent more time traveling than in the farm. goshhhh.
so since there's no time for shabu-shabu, we did a quick grocery shopping and went home to cook. atsu made omu-rice.


he's like a pro at flipping the pan.

and our omu rice~


after that i left around 1030pm to go back to daiki's since i had work the next day.