Kit Kat Framboise

Now available at your local combini. I'll try it tomorrow.

Hiyamizudake Park

This park is just down the road from Nagushiyama Park. Beautiful view and a beautiful well-manicured park.

Azalea Festival at Nagushiyama

The hills are on fire with azaleas now. It's beautiful, but if you want to see them..... HURRY!

The Kurume azaleas are dying out. The Kurume are the smaller flowers and higher on the hill.

The Hirado flowers are below. They are bigger and in full bloom until May 3rd.

It's 500-yen, pay at the booth and go.

Save some time for the plalyground!

Asobinohara!!!

This playground is within the Yoshinogari Historical Park in the Saga Prefecture. It reminds me of Showa Park near Tokyo, minus the flowers.

Entrance into the park is 400-yen for adults. There is more information here.

Looking down from the top of the rollerslide. There is a complex series of nets to climb on to the left.

We were the only ones at the playground, so we had plenty of attention/help. One of the workers made sure we saw these colorful inflatable balls. There was just enough wind to make these a lot of fun. There were several busses of schools there as we were leaving.

That big white thing is not very bouncy, nothing like the fluffy domes. This was more like running across a water bed.

If the playground is your destination, park at the West Entrance, it's closer. Parking costs 300-yen for a normal size car. There was no lot attendant when we arrived, so the park workers had me pay for parking at the ticket window.

English maps are available, but the one I received was a bit out of date, but you won't have any trouble finding things.

Yoshinogari Historical Park

According to the web site, the Yoshinogari Historical Park is "One of Japan's largest moat encircled village and ancient ruins site." That may not tell you much and, unfortunately, I won't either. We mainly went for the park. I'll post those pictures tomorrow.

We did walk around the various sites. All of the informational boards are in multiple languages including English.

These sites are open for you to go in and poke around.

Watchtower!

Weiner Sushi

I'm afraid my local sushi-go-round is going a little too international for my taste. In addition to the ever popular French fries and American fries (above), they also serve wiener sushi (below).

More potty humor...

Who wouldn't want one of these?

Someone didn't want it because I found this AM/FM radio toilet dispenser for sale at a re-sale place.

Mini Bio Park

Every time we go to Costco in Fukuoka, we like to stop off at this little Bio Park across the street. It costs 300 per person, but if you buy the goat feed in the gumball machine outside the front gate, you may win a free entry. Almost all of the animals roam free here and they are happy that you are there. Very happy if you feed them!

There is a goat sitting on a perch above the birds here.

See the iguana just waiting to be pet?

There are gumball machines set up all over the park where, for 100 or 200 Yen, you can buy a little container of food for the animals. Those are live grubs for the... umm.... I don't think they are prairie dogs, because those were one over. Whatever that little guy/girl was, you can feed them live bugs for 100 Yen.

The monkeys get live grubs too. You just drop them down the little tube and they know what to do.

Riverside Park

I believe this park is within the Karatsu boundaries. It is on the east side of a river... hence the name.

It's not one of the most innovative park in Japan, but it's spread out giving kids an ample area to run and play.

There was a small train track that circled yet another play ground, but the train wasn't running while we were there. Speaking of this... the park doesn't open until 09:00 during the summer. The parking lots are chained closed.

A teeny tiny rollerslide on a grass hill.

An obstacle course better suited for the older kids.

Honor Stand

Honor stands are all over, especially in the more rural areas. Farmers set up a little roadside stand and ask that you leave yen in return. I think I've posted them before, but this was the first time I had seen the above set up. You drop your yen for the oranges into that pipe and it goes directly into the house.

Speaking of farmers... This was my bounty from my favorite Farmer's Market this weekend. With the exception of the asparagus, this is what my basket looked like all throughout the winter.

They're already flying their koinobori well ahead of Children's Day on May 5th.

Hershey's Ball...

I can't say that I've looked very hard, but a simple Google search didn't yield any information about these. I'm not sure if they're only here in Japan or even if they are new here. I had never seen them before.

I only opened the milk chocolate pack.

Sports Park on Hirado

All of the other parks we have been to lately have teams of people working to get them ready for the summer.... all except this one. I don't know what the deal is with the Sports Park playground in Hirado, but it is in horrible condition. That slide above is closed and rusty. The rollerslide is roped off.

There were weeds growing up through the rollerslide at the end and nothing indicated any of the playground equipment had been used any time recently.

There were people working on the track.

Above the track is a hillside ready to break out into spring.

Despite the map, it took me a good 1/2 hour to find the rollerslide and I could see it! One hint, don't pull into the housing area. The road to the park is behind there.

Kawauchi Pass and the river beef.

When I first saw the name of this place I miss-read the kanji. Kawauchi is 川内. River Meat, to the best of my knowledge, would be 川肉. Now I can't think of it as anything else.

Hopefully you will be able to enjoy the sweeping views. I never will because I'll always wonder what happened to the majestic river cows. The first Sunday every February they have a giant fire that is a popular event to see.

It's part of Sakai National Park. There are trails all over the place on this mountain!

This is the monument to a poet. You can read more about him here.