While walking through Koganei Park (小金井公園) on Walk #8, I happened upon hundreds of small children and their moms having a massive picnic. Mom bikes went on forever under the wisteria (fuji or 藤) that was a bit past its prime.

I could find no evidence of Shoshika (Japan’s society with few kids) in this scene. Japan’s fertility rate is actually quite a bit lower than China’s, with its supposed one child per female rule. I saw a lot of people in China with more than one child. It turns out that China’s one-child policy isn’t very effective as it is based on where you live. Have one child and live in a big city but get pregnant? No problem. Just move out of the city for a year.

Focus, focus…

Here we go. It was a warm and sunny day so many of the iris (hanashobu or ハナショウブ or 花菖蒲) looked a little wilted, but this one wasn’t too bad.

The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum (江戸東京たてもの園) is in this same park.

Posted on May 23rd, 2010 under Japan • Tags: koganei, water walks in the suburbs of tokyo. • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed