Alpaca Farm in Japan: Visiting Chiba's Mother Farm

Mother farm is a mix between an actual farm, a borderline cheesy attraction, and a farm fair. It has such activities/attractions as petting zoos, pig racing, a sheep show, and farm tours. It's not as English friendly as some tourist spots such as Tokyo Disney Land or Sea, but with animals running around and plenty of farm food to try, you’ll get over the fact that mostly everything will be conducted or written in Japanese. There are, however, some English to be found and Mother Farm does have an English website. Children, families, couples, friends, and old people alike come to this farm to pet, see, and eat animals, and to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

The Start

A sheep bus picks you up at the waiting area near the tractor, and takes you out to where the livestock are kept. Depending on which tour group you are, you'll either get an old Japanese cowboy or this Japanese cowgirl who looks too skinny to have worked on a farm, but is somehow your guide.

The Middle

The bus will stop and you'll notice all these crazy sheep start to run towards the tram. The tour guide then shows you how to feed the animals, and will distribute the food pellets to you. As soon as you get your food pellets, head towards the alpaca pen. These alpacas are ugly as hell. They’re not fluffy at all and they look like they have grunge style haircuts. If you can get over their creepy buck teeth, it'll be love at second sight.

The End

After the tour, there will be an opportunity to take pictures with the better looking and well groomed alpacas. A normal wait time for this free opportunity is about 20 minutes if you get there before the large crowd arrives. If you arrive too late, you could spend up to an hour waiting in line.

TIP: If you go on this tour, make sure it ends right around 1:00PM. The building where you take the pictures is right next to the farm tour bus stop, and doors to the building don't open until 1:00PM anyways.

Hungry Like Genghis Khan

If you find yourself feeling severely famished after the tour and picture taking, I suggest you eat a Genghis Khan meal. By the time you finish your tour and picture taking, this place should be fairly empty. There are many Genghis Khan eateries at the farm, but try to look for one that resembles a huge outdoor cafeteria. When you pick a table, leave a jacket there to reserve your seat, and the servers usually turn the grill on for you while you're at the counter picking out your food. We picked the beef, lamb, and pork. Vegetables and seafood is available but we only got the vegetables and no seafood.

So basically, Genghis Khan eating is all about grilling your meats and vegetables on this big stone pot. Goddamn! Everything tasted good, especially the lamb. And why? Probably because the same animals you see on the tour are the same animals you eat. After all, this is an operational farm, not just a tourist attraction.

If you're not hungry enough to eat like Genghis Khan, and you're willing to try something bizarre, I suggest you try Mother Farm's milk ramen. It sounds so disgusting, right? You're probably imagining milk and cereal, but instead of cheerios there are big fat noodles floating in your bowl. My host mother explained to me that the broth is made out of milk, butter, and salt. The end product of this unlikely concoction is a broth that is creamy and not too salty, in fact, if you've ever had butter ramen in Hawaii, then Mother Farm's milk ramen will taste just the same. And as a little treat, they add corn and cabbage to the ramen as well.