Rascal's Hill

Today we went to one of our favourite places to play. It is a large park to the south of here, a good 25-45 minutes drive depending on the traffic. Its name is Koganei. It is the second largest park in Tokyo. Here is a map I picked up:

The place we always end up is called Rascal's Hill (that is what the sign says). It has a large number of different things for the children to play on. Our boys have referred to it as the "park with the tunnels" because the back-side of the hill with all the climbing stuff is covered with 1m high bushes which have had decades of children crawling and chasing through them. It is a rabbit warren of tunnels.

Today we were surprised to find very few people there. It is often quite crowded. Obviously people went elsewhere on a day that got close to 35 degrees. However there was plenty of shade to be had (the trees are magnificent and large) and a gentle breeze kept us from dying too badly from the heat.

And when it got too hot we could stand in front of this cool-wet-airblowing machine or buy cold drinks from the ever present vending machine.

But our boys were game for everything. They even rode bikes around the bike course for half an hour (cost us about $1.20 per bike to hire them).

Of course it was another piece of nostalgia. We've spent many a fun day here. By ourselves and with friends. No doubt we'll be back another day. We still have much to explore, there is an architectural museum, a eucalyptus "field", plum and cherry blossom trees, a bird sanctuary and a steam locomotive. We usually don't make it past "Rascal's Hill" but maybe one time we'll get to see some of the other wonders of this park.