I thought we weren't going to see any cherry blossoms!
What?
A turtle?
Ah yeah!!
We just spotted these flags
Advertising a boat race
They're all the way along here
It's very confusing
Why is she playing guitar?
And why are they spilling a cup of coffee?
We're just walking to Ohori Park
We walk everywhere
We walk miles
We're just going through Tenjin
Which is the city centre of Fukuoka
Where a lot of the shops are
We just spotted the first cherry blossom!
There are some left!
We're coming up to Maizuru Park
Which is where the Fukuoka Castle ruins are
I thought we weren't going to see any cherry blossoms
Because they were early this year
I thought they'd all be fallen off by the time we got here
A lot of people go really crazy about seeing the cherry blossoms
I've never really been that mad to see them
But since I found out they were within my grasp
And they might be on while we were here
I really wanted to see them
But I thought they'd be all gone
So: YAY!
Look they've got flags out
They say Sakura Matsuri
At the moment they've got an Art in the Park Festival
This is one of the pumpkins by Yayoi Kusama
She's an artist
That does artwork with lots of dots on
She did those rooms that are covered with coloured dots
They've just opened an art gallery of her artwork in Tokyo
It's sold out for like forever!
There's no chance we could go to it
But at the moment in Maizuru Park
Around Fukuoka Castle
They've brought - I think it's 8 artworks
Into the park
One of them is one of her pumpkins
There's lots of them in one of the islands in Japan
And you can go round and spot them all
There's some stalls up here
For the cherry blossom festival
This is the entrance to the castle
And the art in the castle
They've got these paper lanterns
Going all the way up the stairs
It looks like they might have been drawn by kids
I don't want to insult anyone's artwork!
Looks like they all light up at night
They've all got little LED candles in them
Ah yeah!
That must look really nice
They're all the way up the other side as well
We found some more cherry blossoms!
These are the ruins of the castle
Look, it looks really nice
With all the sunlight coming through
So pretty!
This is just an area in the grounds of the castle ruins
They're just there
Just off to the side
And there's nobody here
This is a nice garden
With a cat!
How did it get there?
We've just taken this route through
From Maizuru Park where the castle ruins are
That's where the castle ruins are up there
To get to Ohori Park
We've walked through this little housing estate
Which seems really strange
It's like we've just stepped into a small town somewhere
It's really nice
But I wouldn't expect to see this in the middle of a big city
The other park is that way, down there
Here we are at Ohori Park
It's got a big lake with some islands in the middle
And can you see the bridges?
And over there, some swan boats!
Look there's Fukuoka Tower as well
Look how organised these flowers are
They're all in a grid
There's a running track along here
2000m
This says "start-o"
Look at the koi carp in the water
That one was going at full speed just now
They're giant!
It's hard to give a scale isn't it
Scale with: my finger!
I'll put you in next to them
Oh no!
What?
A turtle?
Ah yeah! Cool!
There it is!
Look at the size of the fish compared to the turtle
We've just been walking round the edge of the park
Now we've come to the bridge to go across to the islands in the middle
If you continue along this route
You can go across all the islands
And the bridges
And go out that side
This is nice - it's like we're walking through the woods
But in the middle of a lake!
*trumpet practice*
That was really nice! I enjoyed that
A good walk through
2 parks
Yes, 2 parks!
Ohori Park and Maizuru Park
With the castle ruins
We're getting a bit hungry now
We're going to hang around here until it starts getting dark
Then go back through Maizuru Park
And see if the cherry blossom illuminations are on
And see what it looks like as it's getting dark
I love that time of day
When the lights come on
And it looks all pretty
I've also discovered
My Japanese is at a level
Where I can understand little kids!
I heard a child shouting out
"Chotto matte" earlier
Which means "Wait!"
And I just heard a girl shouting
"Ashi ittai!"
Which means "My feet hurt"
I still think it's strange being able to see the mountains in the background
Do you find that weird Phil
Not really
I kind of expected it to be like that
I think because we come from somewhere that's so flat
We can never see mountains
If you're somewhere like Edinburgh
You can see mountains in the background there
And I guess parts of Wales too
And the Peak District
But here, maybe not quite like that, but
It's nice!
It is.
There's some people having their hanami parties
When it's cherry blossom season
Everyone sits in the park
And basically drinks
And has picnics
I bet last week when it was 23 degrees
It was rammed
In the popular parks
It gets so busy
You can't even get a spot unless you get there really early
There's people playing baseball down there
It's really popular in Japan
It's the cherry blossom souvenir stamp
They've got a QR code to scan for the english description
It's not the english description
This is the Trip & Scan website
Trip & Scan?
Looks like it's for setting up stamp rallies
For various places
Let's set one up!
I don't know if we can set one up
Look it's of this building
On top of the hill
One of the turrets from the castle
I wonder why they haven't rebuilt it
A lot of these Japanese buildings
Look brand new because they rebuild them quite often
It would ruin the park!