Day 7: Day Trip to Showa Memorial Park

Today, I booked it out of Tokyo an hour by train - to end up in a different part of Tokyo, Tachikawa. My main intention had been to visit Showa Memorial Park, apparently the largest park in Tokyo and well-known for its annual Flower Festival. From late March to early May, many types of flowers planted throughout the park begin to blossom, and from my personal experience, draw couples from the entire Tokyo metropolitan area.

But before we get to that, we have to get to to the park! After transferring twice, I was able to take the Chūō Rapid Line from Shinjuku to expedite my trip to Tachikawa. The train wasn't too crowded and I was able to get a seat, which I was happy about. After arriving, I was feeling a bit peckish so headed to the nearest mall to grab something to eat. Luckily, malls often are situated on top of the larger train stations so I didn't have to look far.

I first stopped in Lumine but all the restaurants here were super crowded. I had arrived around noon on a weekend, so that's to be expected. I was a bit sad that I wasn't going to be able to try the melon fuwa fuwa pancakes but not so sad that I would wait around too long.

Luckily, there was another department store to check - Isetan. Skipping the lower floors filled with Gucci et al., I made my way to the top floors, where the food would likely be located. A quick pro tip from me is that food is almost always on the top floors of the malls and department stores in my experience so far. I don't know if it's always true but if you can't quickly find a floor map, it might be easiest to start from the top floor.

Here, most of the options were pretty busy but I found a restaurant in the back that wasn't super busy - Isetan Dining. I put my name on the waiting list and was seated mere moments later. I should probably start writing "James" in Japanese rather than just putting "JD" to be less confusing for everyone involved though.

I ordered a melon soda and an omurice (a portmanteau of "omelette" and "rice") and after a short while received my grub.

After following other diner's lead to determine how fast to eat, I ate my food at a reasonable pace. It was satisfying and pretty tasty. 10/10 I guess.

Afterwards, I walked to the park and discovered that it was pretty busy. The entrance to the park houses a museum about Emperor Shōwa as the park itself was created for his 50th year of his reign. I opted not to visit but did notice that there were a ton of people just hanging out in the open space around the park's entrance. At this point in time, I had been a bit surprised because I thought that the park required a ticket to get in but I had just walked right in. However, it turns out this was more funnel that wrapped around the museum and parking lot and led to the actual entrance.

At the entrance, I was able to use my IC card to tap into the park. For reference "IC" means "integrated circuit" but is actually referring to specific cards like Suica or Icoca that you can use to pay for train fares or even buy things at vending machines. They are super convenient! Tap-to-pay regular cards (think Visa) can't be used this same way at train stations etc. even though they do have integrated chips but carrying and charging up a Suica is super easy anyway.

After my entry to the main park, I was able to take a perfectly in-focus photo of a giant water fountain:

I immediately noticed that there were tons of flowers everywhere. Even the shrubbery was in bloom, which was really cool. But I was here to see the real star of the show - tulips. I knew that if I were able to snag a few and take them back a few hundred years, I would be a made man. But we'll come back to that.

Although the main path had lots of people, it was still possible to find more secluded, quieter paths.

There was also a nice herb garden with a nice seating area, although I was a bit worried about spiders under there haha

After crossing a bridge over a long-dry canal, I was brought back into contact with throngs of people.

Luckily though, there was also a pretty tasty snack stand!

I got one dango order with misotare (sauce comprised of miso and other ingredients but IDK which ingredients, not an expert). The texture was really chewer and nice and I thought the flavor of the sauce really complemented the dango themselves. The sauce was salty and a bit bitter while the dango were very slightly sweet.

When I finally got to the tulips, I was disheartened to find to that a lot of the tulips had begun to wilt as it was past their prime time to bloom. My plan to go back in time to make a fortune was in shambles!

Luckily, a short walk away, lots of the other tulips were still doing well.

Other than Tulips though, the park also had large swaths of other flowers too.

Nemophila

Nanohana

and finally, Red Poppies

I hope you enjoyed seeing them back-to-back like that. It was quite a walk for me to see them all! I still didn't get to see Sakura blossoms, which was expected. If I did spontaneously want to do that, I would need to take the train north, probably all the way to Hokkaido at this point.

After finding all of the flowers that were highlighted in the brochure to be blooming, I headed to the park's Japanese Garden.

It was pretty cool inside with lots of little paths to hop on walks over water, go up mossy trails to see small waterfalls etc. In the states, I don't think something like this could exist without being sued. Just kidding, kind of.

There was a bonsai garden within the Japanese Garden within the Showa Memorial Park. Although I admire the dedication to maintaining trees for so long, I can't help but only be impressed when the trees are really old. Like this old dude that's over 400 now!

I also got to wondering a bit while I was in the garden about how as a bonsai tender (farmer? artist maybe?) you are supposed to probably be considerate of how many bonsai you create. At this particular garden, like half of the plants were between 80 and 100 years old so I like to imagine one particularly ambitious bonsai master creating one bonsai after another. Forcing his students to take care of raise the bonsai, they were never able to create their own. How sad.

Obviously, that's all conjecture but I did see one worker (artist?) in his workshop attached to the garden trimming some grass in small pots so I guess he still has time to make his own bonsai masterpiece.

I took another picture of more flowers that I don't know anything about and proceeded to leave the park.

I left from a different station than I had come on and it was a lot emptier than you'd expect a station anywhere in Tokyo to be. Tachikawa itself almost has 200k residents so it isn't like it's in middle of nowhere!

As I rode back to central Tokyo, I reflected on my time at the park. I'm convinced now that this is probably up there on the list of most popular date spots. Everywhere I went in the park, I could find a happy couple seemingly out on a date. Tulip fields? Couples taking instagram photos. Open area? Couples frolicking through the grass or having a picnic with an abundance of floral scenery. Bonsai garden? Couples talking about how crazy the bonsai are ("Eh. Nani, nani? Yaba! Ehhhhhhhhhhh!!", etc.). Not a bad thing, just thought I'd give all you couples out there a place to put on your bucket list!

For you Columbus, Ohio lovers out there, even though Showa Memorial Park is the largest in Tokyo, it is still only half the size of Sharon Woods (408 vs 731 acres, respectively). It's interesting though, because the reason I looked it up in the first place was because I felt like the Showa Memorial Park was absolutely massive in comparison. I think the reason I felt it was bigger is because most of Sharon Woods is a nature preserve without trails and so I would bet the length of trails in this park far surpasses the amount in Sharon Woods.

Another fun fact that I learned while researching the above is that Sharon Woods is actually small by the standards of the Columbus Metro Park system which covers 27,500 acres and whose largest park is a massive 7103 acres!!

Tokyo overall has more parkland at almost 200k acres but a large amount of it is national parks so managed by the national government instead of metropolitan government (although that distinction means nothing to me!). The link here has more park info about Tokyo than you'll ever need!

Once I made it home, I wasn't actually done for the day. Unfortunately, the laundry machine in my AirBnb is broken (apparently due to the previous tenant but who knows if it was already broken for them). I was a little upset since this small convenience was part of the reason I had selected this one but what can you do?

The host suggested a coin laundry place about 500 meters away, which I confirmed to be just about the closest on Google Maps. I packed all my dirty laundry into my packing cubes, stopped by the convenience store for laundry detergent (Attack! brand), and made my way to the coin laundry. I was actually a little worried because although I had the "laundry" part of "coin laundry", I was actually a bit short on "coin".

Luckily there was a kiosk inside that took bills. It also had English menu items, except for the one screen that I took a picture of LOL. It basically just says "Piero (brand), Wash & Dry, 10 kilograms, 60 minutes".

I actually got the laundry IC card to earn points (it's free!) and found out that the washing machine was also a dryer AND that it had it's own soap dispenser, so you don't need to bring your own! Not all the machines here were the same type and I could have chosen to wash and dry separately but I didn't want to have to walk back to change machines so I chose the all-in-one option.

It would have also been ¥200 cheaper (¥800 instead of ¥1,000) if I had chosen the 4kg option instead of 10kg, but I wasn't sure if it meant wet or dry clothes (since you can operate it as a standalone dryer) so I just paid the extra ¥200 for peace of mind!

I walked back to the apartment since there weren't any chairs at the laundromat but was able to monitor online when my laundry would be finished. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by the both the speed and cleanliness of the clothes after the wash.

I had used an all-in-one washer dryer before and it had done a poor job but the industrial grade machines really are in a league of their own. Plus it finished washing and drying in less than half the time it would take in my actual washer and dryer back in the states. Maybe I should buy an industrial unit.

On today's activity summary, Google is at it again. I definitely walked more than 16 minutes! Also I didn't walk in such jagged, semi-random paths but it looks cool at least.