Day 11: A Park Day

The weather has actually been kind of dreary and reminding me of Seattle, but I figured I shouldn't let that stop me or I might just stay inside for the rest of my trip. It seemed like it might rain so I just packed my umbrella and headed out. I've actually been waking up around noon, waffling on what to do for the day, and then heading out after getting ready at like 1:30 or 2:00 so I really need to get it together. Since everything closes at 4:30 or 5:00, it doesn't usually give me that much time to do things. I could stay out later, but I'm not much of a nightlife guy!

Anyway, I decided I would visit some parks. I'd actually been to both in the past but thought I might see some different scenery than last year due to the 6 month offset in seasons. I headed to the Former Furukawa Gardens, and luckily this brought me to one of my favorite stations in Tokyo, Kami-Nakazato Station.

The great thing about this station is that it's usually pretty empty and scenic in a weird way. Tons of trains pass by, including the shinkansen on the elevated lines, and it just has the right kind of mood.

That being said, I'm not generally the kind of person to just hang out at a station, so I made my way to the park. I was mainly going to experience the Autumn Rose Festival, which is pretty lucky since I'd seen the Spring Rose Festival last time. I actually took better rose photos that so check out that blog entry for pics.

Flyer originally from pdf linked in announcement at https://www.tokyo-park.or.jp/park/kyu-furukawa/news/2024/10_5_11_8.html

When I got there, I paid my ¥150 (cheap!) entrance fee and then immediately noticed that the mainly building was under construction. I think I saw some reviews later that didn't like that but I thought that it was nice that they at least had a picture of the facade on the scaffolding, I don't think I've ever seen that before!

I also didn't really think about flowers blooming at different times of year. I associate late October with the changing of the leaves so it's cool to see flowers in bloom at this time of year!

The park was nice overall and not too crowded, likely on account of the weather. I once again opted to not go inside the main building since I'm not super into Victorian architecture/decoration so didn't want to spend the additional ¥400 to go inside. When I was leaving, I made the mistake of taking one of the shortcut paths that went directly out next to the gift shop. Since the park wasn't busy and there were 3 workers there, there was no way for me to avoid eye contact with all of them and since it was only me I couldn't pretend to not notice when they called out asking if I wanted to take a look. Luckily I made it out of there only buying a small tin of rose-flavored candy!

My next stop was Rikugien Gardens. Entrance to entrance is only about 1.6km, which means it's just the right distance to be annoying to walk to or to take the train. I ended up walking but I think the bus would have probably been better, although I hadn't checked.

After paying ¥300 to enter, I saw a sign mentioning a Former Furukawa Gardens + Rikugien Gardens combined ticket for only ¥400! I could have saved ¥50! One other cool sign I saw showed where gardening work was going on in the park and what they were doing. Pretty nifty!

The park was also not busy at all, which made it a very peaceful place to walk around. They also have a little snack shop and perform tea ceremonies as well if you are interested in that. I mainly just walked around taking in the view.

It was a nice day overall but you'll be happy to know that it all served an ulterior motive! The stamp rally!!!

I've actually visited 4 of the parks but I didn't know there was a stamp rally going on when I visited Kiyosumi Garden last week.

Also you'll be happy to know I stopped in Akihabara on the way home to lose some money playing crane games. Nice.