Ofuna: Better Late Than Never

The USS Blue Ridge returned to port today after several days of "exercising" off Japan's coast but, since the Seventh Fleet does not embrace the concept of compensatory time, Pip and I had no hope of glimpsing the Ancient Mariner until evening.  Some women wail and wring their hands at a time like this.  Me?  I turned cartwheels and pirouettes around the fabulous roses in Verny Park enroute to another incredible adventure with Ishii-san.  Pouting is impossible when it's springtime on the Miura Peninsula.

Except.  But.  However.  When I pulled out my camera to capture the total sensory overload of acres of roses at their peakiest peak, the camera would not turn on.  The battery seemed to be loose.  The miniscule pin which holds the battery in place refused to snap into position.

So you are just going to have to use your imagination today as you travel with Ishii-san and I to Ofuna, just two stops past the Kamakura station and technically part of Kamakura City. Ofuna is a train junction where you can catch a ride north to Tokyo and beyond or head west toward Hakone and the Izu Peninsula.  I've changed trains there before but never exited the station until today.

The enormous Kannon bust overlooking the station from a nearby hilltop is worth a closer look but today our destination was Flower World Ofuna Botanical Garden, a 15-minute walk from the station.  There were a number of signposts to guide our steps but Ishii-san took pains to bring a detailed map as well.  We did not want to spent eight hours hiking in circles around Ofuna.  Although I can think of worse ways to spend a day.        

Kurihama poppies because I can't bear to post this without a flower picture

We pay 350 yen to enter the garden.  There are hundreds of tempting potted plants for sale just inside the gate and next time I'll take a sturdy bag to carry a few home.  There is a shady path lined by maples that order me to come back in the fall to admire them in their glory.  We wander into two small buildings and see an exhibition of azalea bonsai in one and hydrangea bonsai in the other.  I thought I knew a lot about hydrangea thanks to my friend Jill, but here are at least a dozen varieties she's never mentioned.  How long will this exhibition last?  How can I lure the Ancient Mariner into coming here with his fancypants camera to capture these hydrangea for Jill?

Outside again we wind back and forth across an acre of peony beds.  There are as many peony varieties as hydrangea it seems.  The magenta with white flecks are especially captivating.  I decide I want to plant a lot of peonies when we return to the States.  Where do they grow best?

Canals filled with irises wind around and through the garden.  It will be another couple of weeks before the irises hit their stride, yet another reason to return to Ofuna.

We enter a tropical greenhouse.  Many of the plants in there are slightly frightening.  There are four or five rooms in the greenhouse and the air gets warmer as we move from one into the next so I think there is a theme but I can't tell you what it is.  The last chamber is cooler, perhaps because we are walking between pools filled with specimen water lilies in breathtaking colors.  I thought all water liles were white but I see blue, lavender, pink, magenta, yellow, and green.  Hmmm.  Is there a climate somewhere on earth where both peonies and water lilies thrive?  Or maybe the Ancient Mariner will want to spend his retirement constructing a greenhouse for me.  Probably not.

At last we enter the rose garden.  A lot of people are sitting on benches in the gazebo at the center of the garden, feasting their eyes on the roses, but we are on the move.  We spend time admiring each variety, sticking our noses into the ones that seem especially fragrant.  I remember my Grandma Sykes and her roses and the brandy snifter in which the most perfect roses floated.

Just outside the rose garden we see hundreds and hundreds of lilies on the verge of blooming.  I pat myself on the back for recognizing them as lilies.  I think about the first lily I ever planted, a "Kiss Me Kate" that bloomed the spring my Kate graduated from high school.  This planting hundreds together rather than scattering a few in a perennial bed seems like a good idea.  Note to self:  be sure retirement home sits on at least two acres of land.

Near the garden exit a bed of delphiniums and foxgloves makes us pause.  The delphiniums come up to my chest and some of the foxgloves are my height, which was 5'8" before I commenced the shrinking process.

Yet again, I am grateful to my friend and "student" Ishii-san for sharing another special corner of her amazing country with me.