Another stellar day from a weather point of view. All of Osaka agreed with us and joined us in the park. It was busy with picnickers, photo-shooters and dog walkers. We even saw a dog photo shoot! The logistics of storing the big bags in Osaka, while we visited Kyoto and points south, were too much. So we hired a driver to take us to Kyoto with all our stuff. We can store the big bags in Kyoto and not run into the 15 day luggage storage limit. Hopefully we can ship it to Tokyo from the train station but we will visit the station this week to be sure. Our driver came at 10 AM and we were off. The car shuttle was billed a a sight seeing tour that we were free to make our own itinerary. So we picked a few parks that were far from our place in Osaka to visit on the way to Kyoto. These parks would have taken us an hour to get to by public transportation. This way we get our sight seeing in and our shuttle to Kyoto all in on package. The timing could not have been any better because the cherry trees in these parks are at their peak! It has finally come, our plan to be in Japan for the cherry blossom season has come to fruition.
Odd shop seen in passing
the driver pulled over by this park to show off the blossoms
Pretty
We have made it to the park
Some tulips to start off
Very impressive buildings here
That must be why, they were built for an expo.
These flowers must have cultural sugnificance
Because we saw lots of folks photographing them
Up close and personal
The very top is an observation platform
Great flowers everywhere
A large lake in in the center of the park
The perfect habitat of great blue herons
Nesting i the center of the lake
Preening on the floating platforms with the turtles
Roosting int he trees
With the cormorants and the crows
No mistaking these cherry trees
Mushroom shelters
Walked over to where a man was feeding the ducks
Feeding the Koi too
They were very cute
A pile up
There is even a windmill in this park
Crows
The lake in the background
An egret comes up to pose
Blooming beautiful
Pretty bird
Red red blossoms
White ones
Pink ones
Groves of trees of different types
Sakura, the Japanese word for Cherry Blossom
I got the tower sticking out of the top
This lady got her dog int oposition on the pilings
He is in position
All ready to wear the flower hat
Say cheese
The herons getting territorial
A nice temple roof
Sinuous wall
Some tall grasses by the waters edge
Lovely park
An avocado?
Turtle town
Yellow and green
SO glad we did not visit two weeks ago, none of this would be blooming
Cute kids everywhere getting their pictures taken
Daffys
I zoomed in so the person up top could be seen
A little house for the gnomes
A blue tile staircase
More tulips on our way out
Looking back at the entrance as we leave
Mr. Bones!
1.7 miles 3440 steps
