A little taste of summer...

Cafe au lait Nescafe and Kit Kats. The back of the package features a picture of coffee mugs side by side. One of the mugs has a slice of cake next to it and a calorie count of 450 calories. The other has several Kit Kats on a plate and a calorie count of just 155. Breakfast anyone?

Mango Oreo bars. They are the reason for the "Taste of Summer" title of this blog. To me, these taste like coconut oil sunscreen if you accidentally get it in your mouth. It's not terrible, but I don't taste the mango.

Apple Oreo Bars. The "apple" taste reminds me of the apple flavoring used in Bubble Yum types of candy, but not real apple.

A park to entertain ogres.

If you look up in the town of Taku, don't be surprised if you see a couple of giant red ogres looking back at you.

The ogre with the slide is close to a parking lot, but if you want to visit the Oni with a view, you're going to need to hike up to the top of the hill.

The view from the ogre with the tongue slide.

Here is the view from the ogre at the top of the mountain. I didn't know this ogre was here at first. We were getting ready to leave when a groundskeeper stopped me and told me to take a 12 minute (he was very specific) hike up a steep trail. He was right. It was 12 minutes on the dot to get to the top.

I wouldn't say this was a destination park, but if you're in the Taku area it's a great view and it's well maintained by people who really seem to care about the park.

Saga Shirin Park... Part II

As promised, the other side of Shirin Park in Saga. This side features tree-house like cement structures, and two really cook zip lines and roller coaster rail like zip lines. My camera really messed up while here, so I only have pictures of about half of this side of the park.

This side of the park has it's own parking area. My camera messed up, but that was the roller coaster like zip line. You can't go all the way around, but it's fun.

The picture above is of yet another play area. This play area is close to the main parking area and a good size athletic stadium.

Saga Shirin Park... Part I

Shirin Park in Saga is very, very large. I've divided it up into two parts, but there are actually three playgrounds.

This playground was the larger and more interesting, but you could easily spend a full day here and a full day at one of the other playgrounds on the other side.

At the top of a hill at this playground is a complex jungle gym. There are plenty of things to climb on, run across, and slide down.

This obstacle course goes all the way down the back side of the hill.

Climbing wall.

I took this picture on the opposite side of the hill from the first picture. There is a sand box near the bottom of the roller slide.

I've seen this octopus-like concrete slide at other Okinawan parks. The kids seemed to love it!

I don't know what that design is supposed to be above, but it has two concrete slides running down either side.

That mound with holes in it behind the monster is a cave-like hiding area. Plenty of kids were popping in and out of there.

If you're in Saga, just look for the signs for Shirin Park. They're in English and hard to miss.

A park in Takeo

We love, love, love this park! I'm not sure of the name. I was in Takeo following the road signs for Utagaki Park, but those sign ended and I followed a sign that read Dog Mountain (犬山) in kanji. At the top of the mountain was this park.

The rollerslide at this park is one of the fastest we have been on and it has the added benefit that it swerves in and out of a wooded area. It was really neat! There is also an obstacle course that you can now run through. The first time it was too over-run with weeds.

I forgot to mention the view!!!

The first time we went to this park it seemed abandoned and it was very overgrown. That's the first visit in the four pictures above. This time, it was still desolate, but the grass and weeds were all cut away. Below is the picture I took this week.

That's an overgrown grass slide.

Yummy treats

I'm not an ice cream fan, and I don't like white chocolate at all, but the treats on this post were all very tasty! My friend told me she really liked the Tahitian Vanilla Caramel Haagen-Dazs and she was right.

The Chiboust aux Pommes is really good too. Once you get past that weird apple jelly-like topping. Beneath is ice cream with apples in it and a cookie bottom.

This is the white chocolate I mentioned above. It was an impulse buy at the convenience store. It had actual syrup that oozed out when you take a bite. It also had a cookie in the middle. I loathe maple, but again, it was good!

Hasami Scarecrow Festival

We headed to Hasami today for their scarecrow festival.

A Tanuki scarecrow! Tanuki, or raccoon dogs are pretty famous here. They stand outside many businesses to bring luck. More often than not, they are male, as you can see in the picture above and here in a blog post I did last year.

Wait your turn!!! There were beads of sweat painted on that character's face.

I think I saw Tiger Woods twice out here.

Two clowns feeding a kangaroo. At least that's what it looked like to us.

Apparently, she didn't get the memo.

A scarecrow with scary good aim! She was urinating into a little hole while her scarecrow dog (wearing the face mask behind her) looked on.

Excuse me, I'm looking for Oscar.

I looked in the bowl, they didn't appear to be going for realism.

That's a woman and a bull. I don't know what they were supposed to be doing.

Nice Camelback!

Wild boar scarecrows.

Onigiri anyone?

Scaring away the fish.

Karate.... on a bike.