Neo Park needs more park!
Written: Mar 06 '04
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Cheap, does not require all day to visit
Cons: Difficult to find. Not much to offer in way of variety.
The Bottom Line: I would avoid coming here until tourist season opens again so that there will be more to see. Get directions first before trying to find neo park.
|
|
|
| LuzonTS's Full Review: NEO Park, Okinawa |
Just recently I had the chance to take my daughters to the Neo Park in Nago City Okinawa Japan. I watched the commercials on the local information channel in Okinawa and decided that was the place to go for this particular weekend. The park contains a multitude of birds and animals from five different tropical zones.
My first thought was to use the expressway on the way down but we have always enjoyed the drive on Highway 58 despite the extra time it takes. Driving on 58 gives you a chance to see all of the other parks and tourism attractions on Okinawa.
It took us about two hours to get to Nago and then the real fun began, finding the elusive Neo Park. Usually there are numerous signs in Okinawa that point you along the right way but not this one. I ended up driving around the Nago peninsula wasting an additional hour just looking for the directional signs. I finally spotted one and made the left turn it indicated and found myself in the middle of nowhere.
At this point I was really steamed and decided to switch from the logic side to intuition. Brain on autopilot I began to follow the main road that it was supposed to be on. About five minutes later I noticed a large entry way in all Japanese next to a newly built “Jusco” mall. Logic would tell you that it was some kind of entrance for a parking area but my intuition said go inside.
Sure enough once past the entry way it began to look more and more like there was indeed a park jammed back in the jungle behind the mall complex. Of course you may be asking by now “why didn’t you get directions?” Well, I did. We stopped at a Lawson’s gas station and the only attendant who spoke passable English just pointed and said ten minutes that way and turn right. That was what put me on the one hour loop.
There was plenty of parking in the area and the lot itself was surrounded on one side by the park entryway and on the other two sides by numerous restaurants, stores and children’s fun areas. Other than one restaurant and the children’s fun area the rest of the business’s appeared to be closed.
We went straight to what appeared to be the correct building (once again not marked in English in any way) and asked the guy at what appeared to be some sort of counter if this was in fact “Neo Park” we responded in the affirmative and I began to politely suggest to him that they should do a better job marking the location of their park. In Japan it is not necessary to get rude, loud or angry. They do well enough taking subtle hints and reading between the lines if you are slow and deliberate.
The entry fees came out to only 1050 Yen total for two school age children and one adult. We paid (roughly ten US dollars) and received our passes. Our first stop was going to be the dinosaur museum that was upstairs but it was closed. Next we had to go through the store area to get to the park. The attendant had given us a map but it was all in Japanese and it took a few minutes to get our bearings. The store had the typical tourist stuff, T-shirts, stuffed animals, snack foods etc.
Once through the store we stepped into the lots of flamingos, peacocks and other unknown types of waterfowl that I remember seeing on discovery and animal planet African safari shows. You could buy bird food for 200 yen using an honor system. To the left of the lake area were monkeys that were very skittish and it was difficult to get close enough for long enough to get a clear picture.
Near the top side of Africa lake there were some empty cages and something else that appeared to be closed off. I later found that there was some kind of snack bar that was supposed to be here.
This area finished it was into the cave tunnel to the next area. This next section appeared somewhat similar to the Africa area with its pink flamingos and green lake so it was into the next adjacent tunnel that separated this body of water from another to the far right.
The tunnel was a concrete bottom half attached to a Plexiglas and steel upper half. At first it was hard to see anything as the water on the right side was jade green and very murky. A few seconds later we began to make out the spooky shapes of some very HUGE fish, if they could be called fish. If I had seen any of these things swim next to me in my local lakes I would have never been caught dead in any body of water other than a public pool again.
We tired of the fish tunnel after just a few minutes and found the squirrel monkey and parrot cages. One of the monkeys had a nasty sore on his tail but the other two appeared in good shape. The parrots were colorful but spent more time trying to chew there way out of their cages than trying to impress the crowd with their bright colors.
The next major area was the South American area. It was here we could feed some goats, llamas, sheep and horses that had some voracious appetites. Many of us had bought cups and cups of vegetable for these animals and they would consume what we offered within seconds. It was as if they had not eaten in days.
We tired of the farm animals and found the land tortoises. These were what appeared to be the giant Galapagos variety. We fed them some tree branches with green leafs which only two out of the ten or so had any desire to eat. While the largest of the group was happily munching away, my youngest hopped up on its back to pose for one of those once in a lifetime camera shots.
We spent the bulk of our time in this area but it was time to move on and find out what else there was to this park. On the way out of the South American area we saw that there was some kind of park with a lake that was closed off and undergoing some type of renovation.
Their appeared to be paddle boats, the kind that people normally rent for the hour, but there were laying on the sides of the lakeshore in various stages of disrepair. Hmm the third closed off area, there seems to be a trend here.
Our next stop was the backside of the mini flamingo area and it was here that we spotted some half dog half rabbit looking creatures. They looked a bit like mutant groundhogs. They did not look very cute and did not do very much other than sit around so it was off to the next area which turned out to be right back in the Africa section. Wow that was it? We have seen it all? Sure enough, the entire visit took less than one hour in compensation for the nearly four hours it took to find the place.
Overall this park could be more user friendly. My guess is that much of it was closed off for preparations prior to the upcoming tourist season. The park could be more tourist friendly if more signs and directions were in any western language and not necessarily English.
A website that would have saved me driving time can be found at:
http://www.virtualokinawa.com/tour/neopark/
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
LuzonTS
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Location: asia
Reviews written: 103
Trusted by: 46 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.