Tokyo - Day 6

Our last full day in Japan was another gorgeous day.  Elizabeth arranged a whole bunch of bikes for us to take a ride to Showa park. It was such a great time and probably my favorite day overall in Japan. The blossoms were breathtaking on our ride to the park. 

 All of us on the way. There is a really cool bike in Japan called the mama-chutti. There is a seat in the front and in the back for young kids to sit in. They were all over the place in Japan and both Elizabeth and I drove one.

Outside Showa park entrance:

 Our first stop was at the Japanese garden. I loved it. It was so serene and quiet and beautiful. We visited the bonsai garden and I loved seeing all the different trees. It's a totally fascinating type of horticulture and some of the trees were hundreds of years old.

 The oldest tree in the garden was 350 years old

Having a bonsai lesson from the gardener/caretaker:

 Bonsai for everyone!

My favorite was this Japanese maple tree:

 Mini Kumquat tree:

 Dads + kids in this cool reflection pool:

 We took lots of pictures with the blossoms:

HUGE bundles of blossoms - kind of like a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet:

Allen and Addie on a tandem bike:

 After walking through the Japanese gardens we went to the kids play areas. The park had a huge area with these inflated marshmallow bouncers. It was so much fun. The kids had the best time. You can see how big the area was in this picture:

There were also a ton of fun slides:

It was a slide but the older kids treated it like a ski hill:

There was also a huge ropes course. It hurt the kids feet so they didn't do it for very long:

 We had a slew of tired kiddos by the time we rode back from the park. Here's Madeline, David and Emery completely crashed out. You can see the bike in this picture better. Elizabeth sat on the seat right in the middle.

After the park we changed clothes and had a quick dinner before we left for the airport. It was another complex trip getting from point A to point B. Two cars to the get us all to the bus station and then we rode a bus for an hour to get to the airport. We had an uneventful flight back to KSA and we all slept almost the entire way. We were tired after an eventful and fun week.

We loved our trip to Japan so much. It was wonderful to have so much time with Nathan and Elizabeth's family. Our kids got along wonderfully and just loved having time together. It seems like they enjoyed each other no matter what we were doing. It is the best to see cousins bonding. We also loved spending so much time together as adults. We had some really great conversations and were able to build our relationships. We feel like we scratched the surface of all Japan has to offer and can't wait to go back!