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| Futakotamagawa Station |
The way to the Play Park is very simple. You get off at the station, and follow the signs to Futakotamagawa Rise. The first building on our left is called Town Front. Enter the first floor with lots of shops for cosmetics and café. Take the elevator to the 8th floor where about 2/3 of its space is for the Play Park. The rest are a photo studio for kids and a hair salon. You won’t lose your way, I believe. Before entering the Play Park, it would be better explaining the history of the Futakotamagawa. Until about 150 years ago, the place was called Tamagawa 玉川 with lots of inns and cafés for tourists and pilgrims to Oyama Aburi Shrine 大山阿夫利神社 (; my post on March 17, 2017). In the early 20th century, Tamagawa Electric Railway built a train service between Shibuya and Futakotamagawa, that started housing sprawl around the former tourist town of Tamagawa. In 1938, Tamagawa Electric Railway was bought by Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway that changed its name in 1942 to Tokyu Railways. From the beginning, the businessmen for these railways corporations intended to make the area along their company’s line for housing of newly created Japanese middle class families. Now the town Tamagawa is filled with suburban houses and condominiums where lots of families with/without kids reside and daily commute to downtown Tokyo. You’ll meet many many many parents (mom and/or dad) push strollers around Futakotamagawa Rise. (It would be an enviable scenery for aging rural communities in the other parts of Japan …) These babies in Futakotamagawa would be the mainstream of Japan in 30 years’ time.
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| On our left of this photo is Town Front. |
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| At the entrance of Play
Park … It was very difficult to take photos there, as there were babies and kids always. I’m trying my best to keep their privacy intact in this post! |
Now let’s enter the Play Park. Oh, I have to tell you it’s not free. A ticket is 2500 yen for everybody except babies less than 1 year old. You pay at the entrance and the staff gives you a reusable tumbler made of biodegradable plastic containing bamboo fiber. When you go there next time, you show this cup and the entrance fee will be reduced to 2000 yen. You pass the gate, and will be asked to take your shoes off and leave them in octagonal wooden shoe racks. Once you begin your stroll in the Play Park, you soon understand why we leave our shoes there. Lots of babies are crawling on the carpet and the wood floor. (Hey, we’re in Japan!) The entire facility is like a nursery, with a strong theme of forest, sea, and animals.
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| You’ll have this tumbler. |
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| The parking space for strollers |
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| Take off your shoes here,
and leave them in that octagonal box of your choice. |
From the entrance, the first place we enter is called “Amazing Garden.” It’s a maze made of plastic hedges with the height of preschool kids. Here and there, replicas of Eric Carle’s animals are shown at the height of eyes of toddlers. I imagine for crawling toddlers the place would really be an amazing labyrinth. Moms and dads are expected to help their kids to navigate through it. Once we pass through the Garden, there is Discovery Zone where animals of Eric Carle are waiting for the kids to come and play with. Many figures are made of soft cushions, or have buffer material pasted on the back of panels whose edges are treated to be round and smooth. If babies and toddlers crush with them, the impacts are supposed to be minimum. The Discovery Zone also has exhibitions of nice specimens of insects. (I personally enjoyed them a lot!) I think such juxtaposition of fluffy dolls and specimens are educationally very effective for fresh sensitivity of preschoolers. At the end of Discovery Zone is an entrance of an Atelier for art creations. There, kids can draw pictures, paint wood blocks, work with cardboards for crafting anything they want to, free of charge (er, no, already paid at the entrance). Some works are exhibited on the walls of the Atelier, that indicate certain talents of the creators!
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| The maze for crawling babies |
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| Discovery Zone. These colorful cushions are used when the staff do picture book reading for kids. |
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| Of course, there are many Hungry Caterpillars! |
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| And butterflies! |
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| Legs of octopus are cushions. |
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| A back of animal panel.
Safe for babies to crush. |
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| Everybody loves rhinoceros beetles. |
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| You open this box pasted
on the wall, and the voice of crickets comes out. |
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| Atelier |
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| They are afforesting a
mountain with their trees. You can contribute, of course. |
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| An example of available materials for atelier |
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| Don’t you find talent here? |
Exit from the Atelier, we meet with a wood jungle-gym of Swedish HAGS Co. Many preschoolers climb it up on very smooth surface without hesitation. Its amazing to see their physical potential. Next to the jungle gym is a “Moon” from “Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.” Welcome to the dreamy world of Eric Carle … After exiting from the Moon, there is a space for playing with automata named “Mechanics in Motion.” All the Machines are made of woods and move only by man-power or the laws of gravity. The space also has a grand piano with which kids can create their music in whatever form. The space is like a box for large wooden toys. Next to the Automata, there are spaces for kids to read gigantic book of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” and for prekindergarten babies for milks and changing nappies. For parents, these resting places are juxtaposed with “Relaxation Zone” where we can read many books of Eric Carle (in Japanese and English), and use the tumbler we’re given at the entrance to enjoy several kinds of tea and coffee/latte. The staff for the Play Park are at each facility helping kids to play safely there, or presiding over workshops for art works and book readings. All in all, the Play Park is a nice educational place for preschoolers to enjoy extremely safely with wood toys and colorful staffed animals. I think it has the value of 2500 yen.
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| The jungle gym |
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| It has a small bouldering wall for preschoolers. |
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| Unfortunately, the size
is for kids only … I could not fit in. |
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| But this wooden slope is
for anybody of any size. I found it SOOOOOOOO refreshing to slide here (and did several times, actually). |
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| Babies of less than 1
year old also can enjoy the jungle gym (and their moms and dads were busy navigating photo ops) here. |
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| Dad, would you please get me the moon? |
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| Automata |
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| with really hungry caterpillars |
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| The piano to play! |
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| Tea? Coffee? Juice? |
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| Eric Carle’s books, here. |
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| The space for babies to have milk |
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| Let’s play! |
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| The final space is for
souvenirs. I found they had good selection. |
The Forest Environment Transfer Tax of Japan that started in 2019 will operate its full scheme from next year, 2024, with the Forest Environment Tax. The idea is every individual who has address in Japan and tax liability will pay Forest Environment Tax in poll tax style. The amassed money at the national treasury will then be distributed to each municipality as Forest Environment Transfer Tax whose amount is calculated based on the population volume of municipality. The intention is to facilitate town offices to manage their forests and surrounding natural landscapes. It also is expected to fulfill the national duty internationally promised at Paris Accord against Global Warming and to lessen the damages of natural disasters with freak weather patterns and earthquakes. The problem is, the national grant is calculated by per capita bases which makes 23 Wards of Tokyo the most subsidized municipality in Japan in this scheme. By the way, there is no forest to speak of for this policy to operate in 23 Wards of Tokyo. Oh, yes, there are Imperial Palace, Meiji Jingu Shrine, Inokashira Park, etc. Do you think these places don’t have professional landscapers paid for ages by the Tokyo Town Hall and the National Government? A similar problem is happening in Kanagawa Prefecture, as the largest beneficiary of the new tax is the City of Yokohama with the largest population in the prefecture. As the City has the special status for the largest Ordinance-designated City of Japan, Yokohama does not have any obligation to share the manna from the National Government with the other town halls of Kanagawa. Still, I think Yokohama is better than 23 Ward as we have increasing number of Citizen Forests where Lovers are busy taking care of the neighborhood nature. 23 Wards have not eaten their distributed candies (almost) at all from the beginning of 2019.
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| A views from the top
floor of the tower of Tokyo Metropolitan Government |
The politicians who created this law said, as it is so, people of 23 Wards should do shopping a lot for the things made from Japanese forests, like wood toys at Eric Carle Play Park ... Er, OK. I’m not sure how much Japanese material were used in the Play Park. Though, those babies in the Play Park would have been imprinted the smooth feeling and smell of wood toys, friendly smiles of Eric Carle’s animals, silent but funny sounds from recorded voices of crickets, and sweet taste of non-caffeinated drinks. They will be another moms and dads in 30 or so years’ time and may build their new home with woods harvested from Japanese forests sustained by national tax subsidy. Their spending would circulate for the sustenance of people who take care of Japanese nature. If that be so, Eric Carle Play Park of completely synthetic environment in a shopping center contributes to something for Japanese forests, I presume.
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| Please contribute to forest
maintenance, with your toys! |
If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121 厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323
You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/
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