Are you looking for a good place to kill
at least a half-day with your youngsters? Then the Okinawa Zoo &
Museum is where you want to go! It is literally about 10 minutes (depending on
traffic), out Gate 2 from Kadena AB. This place is totally geared for children,
with some kid rides, wide open areas for them to run around, and plenty of kid friendly
food. Now that the weather is starting to get nice, we decided to check it out
one afternoon, and we felt like it was time well spent, even our 1yr enjoyed
it. She actually enjoyed it so much I think, she was out like a light before we
even got to close to Gate 2 back on Kadena AB!
Well here are some of the practical
stuff…the place is more a less stroller friendly, however I seriously suggest
you bring one regardless. There is no place you can’t get to with a stroller,
and they do have elevators strategically placed to get by stair access points. I
do want to note that this place is actually pretty big, with plenty of HILLS to
transverse throughout the park. You will get a pretty good workout carting your
kids around, that is for sure! Admission is cheap and much of the food and
trinkets are cheap as well. There are plenty of activities that are geared for
kids, like a petting zoo, fish feeding areas, and just plain wide-open spaces
for them to run around in circles. Even though this time of the year is
probably just the beginning of the visiting season for this place, there were a
lot of kids there, so I can only imagine it will get more busy from here on
out. I did notice they had stations for kids throughout the park, which looked
like they had fun games and information for them, but it was all in Japanese
though.
As far as the zoo goes, I think all the
animal cages have the English names of the animals on them, but everything else
will be in Japanese. Like most other “zoos” that we have visited here on the
island, the animal cages are not 5-star by any means, but they looked clean and
give good vantage points to see most of the animals. We didn't go by the
museum, since we figured our 1yr wouldn't get much out of it anyways.
Well getting there is super easy, you
can Google “Okinawa zoo” and Google maps should get you there. I also grabbed
the English handouts, which has the address and the pricing on it for your viewing
pleasure. Enjoy!
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| Okinawa Zoo & Museum English Flier |
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| Okinawa Zoo & Museum English Map |
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| Okinawa Zoo & Museum Japanese |
