Japan Journal: Japanese Parks

Japanese parks are fun. Old fashioned, yes. Dated, yes. Unsafe, yes. Fun, yes. I know I've written about them before, but it's worth mentioning again since we found a new park this week with our friends Liz and Lydia.

A few months ago Okinawa Living magazine featured an article about parks on the island and I realized there were quite a few that we hadn't visited yet so since the kids are off school and the weather is fine, we searched out an unfamiliar one today - Manta Park.

With a little twisting and turning and a few U-turns, we made it to the park which was an island in the middle of some Japanese housing. At first glance, it looked fairly benign with one, albeit giant, roller slide in the middle.

A view from the top.

A view from the bottom.

But there was more fun to be had there than you would expect. The central staircase/pavilion leading up to the roller slide had all kinds of fun things to do. Like a concrete slide that was FAST!

And ropes to climb up and repel off, and rocks to climb, and a fake tree (concrete, of course) to climb. All these then led up to the entrance to the roller slide, which I estimated was on par with the fourth floor of the surrounding apartment buildings. Yes, I let my kids (even the four year old) go down a slide that started four floors off the ground! But they're fun!!! Especially if you have a piece of cardboard under your rear to buffer the friction from your, ahem, delicate parts... The US has got to get some of these slides!