My sister Mika has started a volunteer gig at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one day a week, at the penguin exhibit. MY SISTER IS A PENGUIN WRANGLER! AT THE MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM! I believe the official job description is “Assistant Aviculturist,” or “Executive Chopper of Small Dead Fishies,” or something like that.
For the Yoshida family, this is a major coup. Now we can be associated with the jolly Asian guy who makes teriyaki sauce (Yoshida Sauce), Japanese who make the world’s best zippers (YKK), and an honest-to-God AVICULTURALIST at the MBA!
Good luck with the new job, sis!
UPDATE: Oh. My Shaka. I just realized you can see her feeding the penguins on the MBA’s Penguin Cam. Now how cool is that?
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
i wonder if penguins make good eatin’??? have mika “liberate” one from the oppressors cage and let us feast upon another one of God’s creatures! or are they on the american “no-no” list like whale?
I have a strong hunch they taste very much like ass. No sankyu.
The penguin right next to Mika-san is very cool.
Good luck Mika! I want to have it ペンギン鍋。all you can eat for 2980円。
Looks like Sis somehow wound up in the upcoming movie “Happy Feet”!
Kevin
It’s so cool, I can’t believe it! For Mika to have overcome her fears of Big Birds with biting beaks, worms, cold dead smelt and big crickets, this is a miracle volunteer job! Remember when we lived in Camarillo on our organic farm? You gleefully caught a huge brown grasshopper and snuck up behind your sister, dropping it under the back of her tee-shirt and then smashed it? Man, it a long time to clear that phobia! And now she’s wrangling penguins!
It is soooo cute to see the few hand-raised penguins want to cuddle up and be petted like kitty-cats! The favorite one is a Katrina Penguin named Patince who is 25 years old! Mika says that Patience comes up and gazes at her, raising her head and asking for “dakko” like a baby. Yeah, it’s the coolest volunteer gig at MBA, ever!
I forgot to tell you about that Penguin Cam feed. All I can tell you is that I participate in the feedings every Monday at 10:30 am Pacific Time. But I guess since it’s live all the time, you can see me scrubbing guano for the hour before that, and play time with the dominos after that. By the way — these are the infamous “Jackass” penguins. And they are as loud and obnoxious as the name implies, at times…