Iwatsuki Park

We've been exploring again, last weekend we went to the Iwatsuki Park. It's a lovely park, with lots of grass, an athletic training area for the kids and some beautiful flower gardens. There were lots of dragonflies about, so the boys were trying to catch them.

It turned out, that Ebi-kun is quite the dragonfly charmer.

We have been having very strange weather recently, this Sunday was the hottest Sunday in October since the Jurassic times, or something like that. Obviously the trees were confused, the cherry blossoms have come out on this one.

And yes, that is a totem pole. Apparently the town is twinned with a city in Vancouver, this was given to the park as a friendship totem pole.

You are not supposed to play ball games in the park but we did play frisbee, after we were worn out we decided to go and explore the rest of the park. I was surprised to find this beautiful pond and zigzag red bridge.

I'm sure that the right time of year it is extremely beautiful with all the water lilies in bloom, there were one or two confused lilies out.

It is the first time I've come across a bridge like this, it does mean you can get a good view the lilies and the carp.

There used to be a castle on the site but nothing remains now except part of the moat, but as you can see below, it doesn't look much like an moat these days. The only downside to the park, were the awful toilets. Most Japanese parks have at least clean toilets, but here the toilets were broken and they were dirty. Toilets aside, it was a lovely day out and a beautiful day for a picnic.