Edo Wonderland

John recently celebrated a big birthday (we won't give away which one but let's just say it's a multiple of 10 and the first digit is odd and prime), and we aimed to celebrate this milestone in an equally big way. Our hope was to scale Mt. Fuji in his honor, however timing conflicts have delayed that hike until late August. Fortunately, a stroke of luck led us to Edo Wonderland instead. Back in February we spent about 15 minutes at a travel fair on the base and walked out with two free raffle prizes, one of which was a pair of tickets to Edo Wonderland. When an MWR bus ride to the theme park became available on July 5, our decision about how to spend that day was made easily.

Edo Wonderland!

Edo Wonderland is an amusement park highlighting the Edo period in Japanese history. Employees are dressed in costumes and wigs of that day while guests enjoy wandering the streets of a recreated Edo town, watching shows and playing games. The ninja shows were particularly impressive displays of skill, precision and agility. We also enjoyed a water show in which geisha actresses manipulated streams of water with their fans and an outdoor comedy stunt show.

Geisha water show!

Actors strut their stunt skills on an outdoor stage.

The games offered were rather fun since opportunities to throw ninja stars, sword fight and shoot arrows don't come up too often. John demonstrated his archery skills by striking the bullseye, while Jennifer's arrow wobbled off somewhere to the right before pitifully dropping to the floor. When it came to the ninja stars, however, it was Jennifer who got the bullseye :-).

John waits in line with the other kids for his chance to throw ninja stars :-).

Bullseye!

Bullseye!

Swordfight! (John living his ninja dream.)

Our time in the park concluded with an impressively graceful geisha parade before we boarded the bus home toward the ice cream cake that Jennifer made for John. Unfortunately it slid into the ice tray while solidifying in the freezer, but it was salvageable and delicious. For those of you with ice cream lovers in your families and American freezer space, below is the recipe from kraftrecipes.com.

Easy Ice Cream Cake

1/2 cup  hot fudge ice cream topping, warmed

 

1 tub  (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided

 

1 pkg.  (3.9 oz.) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding

 

16 OREO Cookies, chopped (about 2 cups), divided (Jennifer used Snickers instead)

 

12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches

Whisk fudge topping and 1 cup Cool Whip in medium bowl until blended. Add dry pudding mix; stir 2 min. Stir in 1 cup cookies.  Arrange 4 ice cream sandwiches, side-by-side, on 24-inch-long piece of foil; cover with half the Cool Whip mixture. Repeat layers. Top with remaining sandwiches. Frost with remaining Cool Whip; press remaining cookies into top and sides of dessert. Wrap loosely with foil.  Freeze 4 hours.

Jennifer's ice cream cake...pre land slide.

A little crooked, but at least the birthday boy is still excited!

 

Thank you, Edo Wonderland, for a stroll back in time and happy birthday, John!