Showa Kinen Koen

Daddy's cousin suggested we take the kids to Showa Kinen Koen (Memorial Park) and we're so glad they did. It's an enormous park with something for everyone. There are courts for every sport you can imagine, gardens, a lake, sculptures, and playgrounds like we've never seen before. It's kind of like a fairytale land for kids.

When we first arrived, the kids right away noticed the lake had boats to rent. These are the kind of boats that you pedal with your feet like a bike. We squeezed the four of us into one and quickly realized these were not made for people of our height. It was quite an uncomfortable ride, but was still neat to be out on the water and the kids enjoyed steering for us.

Fish would come right up to the boat to check us out.

This is another beautiful location to enjoy the sakura (cherry blossoms) as well as other flowers and trees.

These branches were bare in early March, but still a beautiful scene. Would love to see it in the summer.

Stopping to smell the roses.

Now for the playgrounds- 

Roller slides- Daddy and I even went down a couple times. Fun and noisy.

Rainbow trampoline nets. Asher loved this, Journey did not.

Dragons to climb in and on.

And their favorite- the jumping clouds! Imagine a soft, pillowy, trampoline that is smooth. They had a blast running and jumping on these! I wish I could have joined them, but sadly, it's for kids only.

Towards the back of the park, the bonsai garden holds an impressive collection 

of well-cared-for trees. Photos can't capture their beauty and delicate features.

This one is made to look like a miniature forest.

The man who was working on the trees brought a couple out to show Asher and Journey. How cool to hold a tiny tree in their hand. By the way, tree is the first word Asher ever said.

We found this maze of cardboard ramps for a ball to run thru in the train station. 

I think the kids would have stayed there for an hour playing with it. 

Time to head back to base to meet Karin and Dan for dinner again.

This statue sits outside the Fussa train station. No idea what it means, 

but I found it interesting and beautiful being surrounded by green shrubs and sakura.

It was so nice to spend time with family. They moved to Japan before our kids were born, so this is the first time they all met. We hope to go visit them again before too long.

We had a deadline of returning to California, and that time was approaching. Watching the flights, we realized we had a better chance of making it home from Okinawa, so the next day we caught a flight out. It was kind of a crazy mess with the flight time changing repeatedly, but we made it. On to Okinawa!