Showa Kinen Koen part 1

And Japan Chronicle continues after the break ^^;

I took over 300 photos for this set of photos so, I will break this apart into two parts, this first part we will cover battling the dust storm, and Japanese tea room :) A post about bike rental in Showa Kinen Koen can be found here on my art blog entry here! ^^/

We visited Showa Kinen Koen on one of our last trips to Japan in fall, at that time I took Taiga :) we only had about an hour or so at our previous visit and we realised it was not enough at all to explore the HUGE park O_O! So this time we (along with bluestarbaby) allocated a full day to visit it! ^^ Will definitely want to go back again, as I am rather pleased with a lot of the photos I took, most of them hardly needed any editing (except for a few where I set the camera wrongly).

I was really glad we took some photos here as at a different place where there’s supposed to be huge fields of poppies, the blooming poppies were not as dense yet, and also at that time the winds were too strong for any decent photos.

The information on how to get to Showa Kinen Koen can be found on this link, but I would suggest browsing through the site for other information like bike rental etc.^^ For the first time we also decided to rent a bike to make sure we cover the spots quickly or at least efficiently!

What we did not expect for that day to be SUPER WINDY!!! (See Aki’s hair above, I was rather scared her wig will be blown off many times, and I actually almost lost my hat to the wind once, luckily it was found stuck in the flowers by bluestarbaby)  o_o; And the past few days was rather warm and dry, a lot of dust and soil was being blown about, which makes it very tough for photos. >_<; See the pictures below for the dust clouds argh!

Husband braving the dust storm in picture below :P

By now, I gladly took the face mask husband offered me to cover my nose and mouth because the air was seriously full of flying dust! By the end of the day everything on us were covered in dust, I even had to clean Aki and wash her wig and clothes for the day because it was just so gross lol! Luckily the Yukata actually protected most of her body from getting dust on her o_o;

The orange, white and yellow poppies here were past their prime I think, and it was so windy and dusty, we could hear females going “kya!” time to time (I’m quite sure :P) we walked across to a different field of rapeseed plants, where the yellow flowers were blooming densely ^^ Still very windy tho ^^;

Some of my photos were actually blurry because the camera couldn’t focus from the shaking ^^;

But due to the strong winds, the sky is mostly clear and blue ^^/

Aki pose professionally to ensure I get some good shots :)

A stray poppy flower :3

After having taken enough photos at this spot, we decided to move to a different part of the huge park, came across this tea room :D

Initially I was a bit wary, as we went to a different tea room in Shinjuku Koen and was quite disappointed, but I was convinced to go in by husband and bluestarbaby, and I guess it was nice to rest my bum for a little bit and get some shelter from the dust and wind. Before I went in I took some photos of Aki around the building ^^

This beautiful Japanese sweet which seems like it might be carefully hand made, was presented to us along with our green tea, made me feel glad that I came in! It was beautiful and delicious, and went well with the tea. The only thing I would pick on is that we don’t get to kneel on tatami mat or see the tea being prepared lol!

And of course Aki had to have a taste ;)

Om nom nom

Thanks for looking! Hope you enjoyed our photos :)

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