[Date and Time] Saturday, May 21, at 10:00~15:00
[Spots] Rose Garden and Nihon Minkaen
[Visitors] 9 people and 1 child, with 3 from Myanmar, 2 from China, and 2, including a child, from Japan, and 1 each from Mongolia, Germany, and Korea
[Attendants] 19 KSGG members
Luckily, it was a perfect weather for hiking, as is called “Satsuki-bare” or early summer fine weather in Japan. Participants who numbered 29 in all, including 19 KSGG members, gathered at Mukogaoka-Yuen Station, Odakyu Line, at 10:00 a.m. In the Mukogaoka-Yuen Rose Garden, there are 4,700 roses which consist of 530 types of them. Many volunteers have been carefully taking care of these roses since 2002 when Kawasaki City took over the garden after Odakyu Electric Railway closed Mukogaoka-Yuen Amusement Park.
There are various kinds of roses including hybrid rose such as Princesse de Monaco and rambler such as Cocktail. Many people, who felt attracted to the various kinds of colorful roses, took the pictures of them here and there. Also, we had lunch together in a friendly atmosphere which is similar to that of a big family.
After lunch, we moved to Nihon Minkaen, an Open-Air Folk House Museum. Some visitors joined a tour guided by a Minkaen’s volunteer, while the others visited favorite private houses by themselves. Some settled themselves in a house with a rafter roof. Some felt relaxed, having Zenzai, a traditional Japanese sweet, at a restaurant in a Gashozukuri-style Yamashita House.
All of the visitors looked quite satisfied with this hiking. One foreign visitor said, “Thank you very much for guiding me around this beautiful rose garden. I could have a really good time.”