Hanami at Mitsuike Park

Mitsuike Park is located in Yokohama's Tsurumi Ward. It's about a forty-minute walk from the Tsurimi JR station if you turn left rather than right at the top of the first mountain range.  But if Bossy Pied Piper is holding the map, you can count on spending at least an hour wandering over hill and dale.

Four kind strangers merit thanks for steering us in the right direction:  an elderly gentleman walking his dog, a perky young lady out for a stroll, and two middle-aged ladies who let us follow them.  While Bossy might have trouble reading a map now and then, she has a good eye for picking out polite and helpful Japanese citizens.  This is probably because every Japanese citizen is polite and helpful.

Weather and Sunshine never, ever complain when I march them three miles in the wrong direction.  This time their reward was a stop at Takano Fruit Parlor for chocolate parfaits on the way back to Yokosuka.  My children should take note of this "Never Complain = Chocolate Parfait" scenario.



The park has three entrances. I'm fairly certain we approached the park from the west but I'm not willing to swear this on a stack of Bibles since Japanese maps are not always oriented with north at the top. The park is located in a valley and I know for certain that we entered from above. Those nice middle-aged ladies pointed us toward the upper path and then hightailed it down steep steps to the lower level, leaving us to our own devices. We took their advice.

When I returned to the park with Ishii-san three days later, I learned two things: Mitsuike means "three ponds" and a ten-minute bus ride from the train station to the park costs 210 yen. The ponds are girded with paths and there are lots of other paths at higher elevations.  The park is enormous. 

A view from a lower path

The hanami crowd on Thursday was about one-tenth the size of the Sunday crowd and tended toward artists, photographers, and dog-walkers.  Weather and Sunshine took hundreds of pictures of cherry blossoms.  Bossy took hundreds of pictures of artists, photographers, and dog-walkers. 

A professional photo shoot under a weeping cherry tree

My favorite photographer