We went to a snake museum and saw the largest snake ever.

This is a picture of the Habu snake that's native to our island.

The striking distance of the Habu is so much greater than that of the Cobra that I think I understand now why they're so feared.

After viewing the museum for a short bit we went to watch the snake show. All of it was in Japanese so we couldn't understand anything but from her actions I've understood this much.

First she brought out a snake, not sure what type, in a glass cage. Then she produced a stick with two fork like points at one end. On each of the points there was a balloon, one pink the other white. It looked like they were filled with some water. After watching what she did with them I assumed the water was to keep them from flying all over the place.

Opening the top of the glass cage she stuck the stick in, balloons first. She held the stick so that the white balloon was in front of the snake and the pink balloon was hiding from the snakes view behind the white balloon. The snake was coiled and ready to strike but didn't move. Pulling the balloons out she flipped them around and stuck them back in the cage with the pink balloon in front and the white behind it. Immediatly the snake struck again and again until she withdrew the balloons. She flipped them around and again the snake was wary but docile in the face of the white balloon. Flipping again the snake struck at the pink balloon succeeding in popping it. Unfortunatly for me the language barrier is great so all I got out of that lesson was don't wear pink around snakes. Which is fine by me because I don't like to wear pink much.

The lady brought out a different snake and she put it on the stage floor. This snake looked like a cobra. Raising her foot she mimiced stepping towards the snake, and the snake backed up as if it were about to strike. She did this again and again saying things I couldn't understand to the audience. Then she swung her right hand behind her back over her head all the way around until it connected with the back of the snakes head. I was shocked the snake didn't strike her hand. But she did that again and again. What I got from this lesson was that this particular snake didn't have much of a field of vision.

Well, after the show. She spoke to the audience as she pointed to some arrows pointing towards the stage and then going to the other side of the stage pointed to another set of arrows leading away from the stage. I guessed she wanted us to line up. As I watched other people line up I glanced towards the stage and saw her produce an extremely large snake. People then came up one by one and getting the snake placed on their sholders they got their pictures taken with the snake. Aaron and I thought, why not? Lol I didn't anticipate Thomas's reaction. I thought he would just ignore the snake. I was wrong. We didn't have the snake on our shoulders for more than a few seconds before he started screaming and crying. I tried to calm Thomas down while telling the ladies that they can forget the pictures because the snake was scaring my son and I'd rather him be happy then have a picture of him screaming in it. But of course there's that language barrier and she took two pictures before they took the snake off our shoulders. So, here are the pictures.