Category: Everyday Life

Free day at the Zoo and Botanical Gardens

Today was May 4th. It’s a Japanese national holiday, and starting from this year it’s called Greenery Day (changed from a generic national holiday).
So admission to the Fukuoka City Zoo and Botanical Gardens (right up the hill from us) was free!
We usually avoid going to crowded places, but we happily go if the admission is free and it’s close to our house. In the morning it was raining: we gave up on a picnic lunch, and made our way there in the afternoon when the rain stopped.

The rose garden is probably one of the most popular spots, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it, because the roses there were not attractive for me, and they hadn’t been in bloom yet when we visited there before. However, we were lucky this year: they were almost in full bloom! And they had my favourite kinds of single petal and small roses. They even had a few Paeonia planted around the rose garden. We knew the Zoo had started on a twenty year reconstruction project, and they are probably also working on the Botanical Gardens to make it more attractive. I feel a little happy about it.

As usual, at the Zoo we visited the hippo couple, Saburô the camel, and Kibô the giraffe. We were there until closing time.

– YS, 4 May 2007

4 May 2007