Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Showa Koen... head in the clouds.

This park is called Showa Kinen Koen. It's located right outside of the Nishi-Tachikawa gate of the JR Chuo line. I love this park!!!
The Sea of Clouds! I'm pretty sure I was able to bounce 2 meters in the air here! The tops of each of these marshmallow like mounds are very bouncy. Far more bouncy than your average trampoline. The areas in between were not as bouncy, but no less fun. The kids we had with us spent two hours running all over this area and we still had to drag them off!
This area, according to the guide we picked up when we arrived in the park, is 1,600 meters squared. There were three areas here. Two were huge and the third was slightly smaller and geared more towards smaller kids and people with mobility impairments.


This is the Rainbow Hammock area. I took this photo from the top of a slide looking towards the nets.
Adults are not allowed on these nets, but they really look like fun! They remind me of the kind of nets trapeze artist fall into after their act. The kids loved this area! Actually, they loved the whole park!The Dragon Dunes. Dragons appear to be swimming throughout this area. Kids can climb under, over, and through all of these dragons. If they aren't too tired from the clouds (can you see them in background?), they'll want to spend a lot of time here.
The Misty Forest would be a welcome and refreshing place to visit after the workout you get on the clouds. We actually visited here first. Next time....
There is a flower festival going on right now at Showa Kinen Koen. We were at the park right when it opened at 09:30, but we were behind a dozen or so photographers. On our way out, there were thousands (my estimate) of photographers. It is so beautiful there right now. There are Cherry Blossoms above and beautiful Spring flowers below. Pictures really don't due the grounds here justice.
This is the Bonsai Garden in the Japanese Garden area. There was one bonsai here that you aren't allowed to take pictures of. I don't know what the significance of that tree was. I never got close enough.

5 comments:

Katie said...

Your pictures came out great! We had so much fun and can't wait to go back. And good point about the Misty Forest....that would feel really good after the clouds!

SabrinaT said...

Thank You for posting these. We are going to this park in a couple of weeks..

What great pictures..

Alisa said...

this makes me wanna cancel our itt trip, and go by ourselves!
where did u get directions?
i would love to go before may 25th!
and see the flower festival!
it looks just beautiful!

Jamie said...

How fun! We have to go here, the boys would have a blast. THanks for sharing. Now to find it.;)

Dollars to Yen said...

I would actually recommend going by yourselves. It was near Yokota AFB.

What I can remember about the way we went was to take 16 to 29, then follow another 29 to the left. Turn left at the Koban. There are signs to Showa Kinen Koen starting from the exit for 29.

Sorry, we actually had to stop a couple of times for directions.

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