Golden Week offers kids’ event whole family can enjoy

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Giant bugs are perennial favorites and Kids’ Adverture Land events.

In Japan, May 5th is Children’s Day, the national holiday every Japanese kid waits for with much anticipation and excitement. This holiday is part of Golden Week, which is a series of Japanese national holidays in early May.

The 11th Kids Festival Adventure World will be held at the Chatan Dome in Mihama, Chatan on Saturday, May 3rd through Tuesday, May 6th from 9:00 a.m. ~ 5 p.m.

The event features plenty of interaction between kids and animals.

Advance admission tickets are ¥1,600 for adults, and ¥1,000 for children ages 4~15. Same-day tickets are ¥1,800 for adults and ¥1,200 for ages 4~15. The festival is free for children under four. Tickets are available at all locations of Family Mart (E plus), Lawson (L-code: 85509) and Coco Stores. For more information: (098) 936-0134

The festival is full of exciting events and attractions for both kids and their families: an exhibition of live insects such as beetles and butterflies; an exhibition of specimens and information panels on the world’s biggest beetles known as the Hercules beetles, the Giraffe stag beetle and rare species of butterflies.

Also scheduled are battle matches of giant insects; sales and auctions of insects; a Snow Show Adventure where kids can touch and play with snow; a petting zoo with a variety of animals and many different breeds of dogs and cats; a huge bubble making machine, which produces some 10,000 soap bubbles per minute; a kiddie pool (be sure to bring your swimwear); a fun, black light tunnel; and a haunted house.

In addition, visitors take photos with 26” tall Cape penguins from the southern coastline of Africa. Guests can also play with high-tech robots like a chatting If-Bots, a Hello Kitty robot, adorable mini-dinosaur robots and pet robots. Children can enjoy unlimited rides on air bouncers free of charge!

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I actually took my kids to this yesterday because they had free tickets from school. It’s a shame the adult tickets cost so much because there really isn’t much for us to do. We got there early and waited in line for about 40 minutes to get inside (there was no line when we left around lunch time). Once we got in, there were just too many people. It was very difficult to find where the lines for the different inflatable things were. Many of the more interesting things cost extra money. If your kids want to go play with the snow and ride the sled, that’s 500 yen. The pony ride was like 200 yen or something. The haunted house was ok, but the staff running it didn’t take it seriously at all. One guy in costume was laying on a bed in the house checking his phone. There were no robots or anything that I saw. I also didn’t see a black light tunnel. It’s quite possible I missed them due to the place being overcrowded, but I didn’t see those advertised either.

After the bug fights (which actually was fun to watch), they had some dance performances by different groups of talented kids. If your kids speak English, be warned that some of the songs these kids dance to are extremely inappropriate lol. I thought it was funny, but I know some people have some thin skin about that sort of stuff. The whole thing was just disorganized, overpriced, and way too crowded. We probably would have had a better time if there were about half the people there, but after spending 3200 yen for me and my wife to do almost nothing there while the kids spent most of the time waiting in lines, we wished we went to Okinawa World instead.