Sado Island - Day 2 (Part 2)

This will be the forth and the final part on my trip to Sado.

The trip on the second day continued with the visit to トキの森公園 (Toki no Mori Kouen) or Toki Forest Park. What you think a toki is? Let me give you a simple MCQ.

A. Turtle
B. Bear
C. Bird
D. I don't know la. Just tell me the answer

I guess most of you will go for option D, right? So, let me show you what a toki is actually.

not exactly a picture of a toki, but it's the entrance to Toki Forest Park

So, now have you got your answer?

Toki or Japanese crested ibis is classified as a bird of 'the soul of species in one genus'. Sounds complicated right? Just ignore that. Toki is classified in the order Ciconiiformes, the family of Threskionithidae and given a scientific name Nipponia Nippon.

Now, it sound more complex right? You should have skipped the paragraph above.

a hanging model of toki inside the gallery

some facts on toki the bird (but I didn't read them)

Toki has a total length approximately 76cm, with its face and legs bright red, and its body and bushy crest white with a pale pink tint, whilst its head, back and upper wings become grey-black during the breeding season.

I wonder how if human can change its skin colour when they're breeding!

nyek, nyek - toki is a cute bird, right?

alamak! only left with bones!

While looking on some of the toki on display, I came across this white feathered toki.

do you know what's so special about this toki?

it's actually the last toki being breed in Japan

It was borned during the summer in 1967 and was named キン (Kin). It lived for an amazing record of 36 years before it died in the morning of October 10, 2003.

Besides the toki on display, there were also the wings of both sides of toki and their eggs that can be seen in the gallery. They placed a few types of different species of toki's egg along with other types of birds like emu and ostrich.

wings of toki

toki's egg

I don't think there was any dinosaur egg here

Toki feeds on small fish, pond-snails, insects, etc, in ponds, swamps and rice-paddies in mountain sides. We couldn't go near the cages of the toki as we could only see it from inside the gallery. As the cages was about 100 metre away, we used a binocular to see the toki.

this is the maximum I could zoomed

but later, I found some toki on my way out

but these are black toki

not so cute to me ^.-

The visit to the toki conservation centre was the last stop of the Sado trip. We later headed to the port to take our ferry back to Niigata. But before that, we went shopping for souvenirs at the shops in the port.

For the first time, I was told by someone that I shop more than girls.

the souvenir shops near the jetty

But this is different. I wasn't shopping for clothes. Souvenirs is a completely different thing to clothes. After we were done with our shopping, we walked into the entrance for boarding the ferry. I still spotted a toki there.

But it was just a paper-made ones hanging from the ceiling.

look at the time! it's only noon when we were going back

for one last time, there's 4D numbers again on my ticket back to Niigata

Sado Kisen Car Ferry

When the time was up, we headed inside the ferry. It's called Sado Kisen Car Ferry. It was quite a big ferry. But I have no idea why they put the word 'car' there.

When I got in, it wasn't as classy as I'd expected earlier. People were lying down on the floor like sardines. It looked more like a shelter area for those flood victims than a ferry. We put down our stuff first before started wondering around the ferry.

sayonara Sado

another view of Sado from the ferry

To make sure that our trip to Sado complete, we took photos on the ferry.

my leng zai senpai, William

Idris a.k.a Burung Besar (I will tell you later why I call him like that)

Surianto and a jitpun kia

we wanted to take a pic with 3 people wearing the sunglasses, but some people kacau-ed us

I don't know why, but I just like this pic

I noticed that there were some birds that have been following our ferry for quite some time. When they flew closer, I realized that they were seagulls, just like what I mentioned in my entry before my trip here.

one...

two, three...

too many liao, don't want to count already

These seagulls were just everywhere. I only knew later than there were people feeding on them. That is why the seagulls kept on following our ferry. Some of the people were feeding them with breads.

There were also people feeding them with prawn crackers.

this guy is having some fun feeding the seagulls

Feeling like having a try on that too, Surianto and me went and get two packets of prawn flavored crackers. Unfortunately, by the time we were back there, there weren't a single seagull already. So as a cover-up being malu-ed, we ate the crackers.

''Oo, now seagulls no more liao, eat ownself la now? Haiya, no need to cover cover ady la!''

Since there wasn't any seagulls already, my another senpai, Idris turned into a bird. A big bird. He went flapping his arms and move his neck, just like a bird. Realising that he was waiting to be feed, we began throwing the prawn crackers into his mouth. This is what the government pay the budak JPA to do.

Doing circus stuff!

look at how close they actually come near you!

A few moments later, the seagulls appeared again. But by that time, I have eaten almost half packet of my crackers. Never mind, still got a bit left for me to try feeding them.

So I took a few sticks out, putting them on my palm and wait for them.

preparing my keropok

It didn't took me too long as the seagulls could sense their food were waiting for them. And this is what I got.

here you go bird

Yes, my attempt was a successful one! After that, the seagulls begun to disappear until it came to one point that there wasn't any seagulls following us already.

Me: Ei, you notice or not. No more birds liao la.

Senpai: Yalor hor. I think hor, the birds dun dare to cross the border kua.

Me: Yalor, I think they haven't renew their passport yet!

the ferry getting closer to the jetty in Niigata

When we were nearing Niigata port, the seagulls could be seen again. The journey on the ferry was two and a half hour. After getting down from the ferry, we had another one hour journey by bus back to our kosen.

And that was how the trip to Sado last weekend. New environment, new exposure and a new experience for everyone of us, especially the newly came 3rd year students. Certainly is was tiring, but it was worth it.

some of the stuff I got from Sado

this kueh has ang tau (red bean) filling inside it

I got one pack for my class teacher as well (thanks Joann for reminding me) and he was happy when I passed it to him ^.^

this is how it looks

The next activity among the foreign students will be the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival in early August.

I bet that will be nice as well!