Tag: botanical garden

Expo Park?

SDSpivey
Tower of the Sun

This morning I went to Expo Park, no, not that one again. This was Expo ’70.

The park is now just the remnants of the expo, the buildings have long been removed, just engraved stones tell what pavilion used to be there, for such a short time.

Now, there are large open expanses where kids can run and play. There are some more recent additions, such as “the Beast”, a rope suspension obstacle course. Unfortunately, it was closed when I was there, but there was an outing of young kids, running and screaming and just having fun. They look cute wearing their matching colored caps. White caps were at the field next to the Beast. I also saw red, lavender, and green in other areas. I don’t know if this was a special day or just a semi-regular occurrence.

As I walked around the park, I saw many trees and plants that we also have in Florida, azaleas are rampant here. I suspect that many of the ornamental plants we have originally came from Japan and east Asia. There was a hill that was sectioned off, which I presume is allotted to different individuals to plant whatever flowers they wanted. Perhaps it was some sort of flower gardening club.

Next to the path, I spotted a snake, just sunning itself. I had to do a search and yes, Japan has poisonous snakes. Luckily, this didn’t look like one, but I kept my distance anyway.

I saw a strange mesa with a circle of rocks, the only thing I found to explain it was a small engraved stone that said “Hawaii”. This still makes no sense, as Hawaii is not circular, nor was it a country in 1970. It wasn’t even near the USA pavilion site.

I found a monument showing where the East Germany pavilion was located. Strange to find something for a country that doesn’t exist anymore. There are many stone plaques on the ground showing where each county’s pavilion was, but who cares? They are gone now.

A group of school kids heading out to the park

I found an observation tower, so I decided to go up, just to see the area a bit better. At the top, I couldn’t really see much, as the trees have had 5 decades of growth. There was a walkway extending off into the trees, so I followed it. It lead to other towers and more walkways, until a much taller tower at the end.

Apparently, this was a one-way trek and I happened to pick the correct place to start. Had I started at the other end, a “do not enter” sign would have stopped me and I would have presumed it was unsafe to proceed. It was indeed looking a bit rundown, having only the bare maintenance in its long life. In the middle, I had to cross a very wobbly rope suspension that was definitely past its prime. It had several signs from COVID times, so regular maintenance probably is not high priority.

One of the other few items that still remain is the “Tower of the Sun”, a tall statue of the Expo’s mascot. I really do not understand why this is something they wanted to keep, much less build in the first part, it is rather ugly, in my opinion.

To get to the park, I got onto the brown Sakaisuji line, indicated by “K”. WTF does that stand for?

My first train, I realize is going to the wrong branch of the line, there are 4 terminal stations. So I get off and wait for the right one. I was to exit at Yamada station, which is one of the few places I could read and understand the meaning of. Yamada (山田) comes from “yama” meaning mountain (which you’ll hear sometimes when referring to Mount Fuji, as Fuji-yama.) and “da” meaning field. So Yamada means “mountain field”, also a very common family name. “Mr. Ninja Warrior” is named Yamada.

I made the choice to get the metro day pass, so I could get on and off wherever all on one ticket. But on exiting, I got an error and the arms closed in front of me. An attendant directed me to the “fare adjustment” machine, where I had to pay an extra 240 yen.

The stations north of one of a river are marked as HK for Hanku line, so maybe that is where the K came from. I guess Hankyu line is not part of Osaka Metro, even though it is the same train cars.

I exited through a different gate than where I entered the park, this one leading to the Osaka monorail. I quickly held up my metro card and asked about monorail access. Nope, can’t use it. So I walked back to Yamada station. A long walk, as I was nearly on the other side of the park.

After spending a day at the Expo 2025 and another at Osaka castle, I seem to have gotten a sunburn on my head. I guess cutting all my hair off wasn’t the best idea. As I exited Yamada station, there was a shopping center attached. I found a clothes shop and found a cheap hat. It wouldn’t help the burn I have, but will stop additional damage.

After finding the station, I headed back to the room. All this walking is really causing a lot of pain in my shoulder, for some reason.

I saw signs at the park about Expo ’70, but I started to wonder, was this a generic expo, or was it a World’s Fair expo? Wikipedia to the rescue!

Yes, it was the location of the 1970 World’s Fair, but wasn’t the only other in Osaka. There was another in 1990, only this was a “horticultural” expo, one of the in-betweener fairs. This location was nearby my room, maybe 3/4 mile away, but I’m tired and sore, so I took the metro. After all, I do have a day pass, so I might as well use it.

As I understand it, and I’m no expert here, the horticultural expos have fewer pavilions and more gardens. In a sort of “who can have the best looking yard in the neighborhood” competition.

Many of the garden spaces remain, but very likely not the same plants as 35 years ago.

This park is very popular with dog walkers. I even found a small hill where a bunch of tiny dogs were running around loose, play fighting. A small black dog started walking towards me, so I knelt down and it then ran to me for a bit of petting. This instigated a chain reaction, causing more to come over.

All the dogs here had on “outfits” which I wonder if this is a cultural thing or just a way to easily spot your dog vs other similar ones.

There were all sorts of dogs being walked through the many pathways. I saw many “shiba inu”, being one of the few native dogs to Japan.

Glencar and entering the UK

SDSpivey

We stopped off at a small water fall this morning, Glencar Falls. It is only 50 feet or so high, but the largest we’ve seen so far.

I spoke with someone there about if there is any path to drive up the mountain. He didn’t really give me an answer, but he did tell me about trees that were planted on the mountainside, with the light and dark trees forming a Celtic knot. I’m not sure if it is true, I didn’t see it.

Then we headed for the Organic Center, where they teach about responsible gardening and soil management. It mostly looked like any Lowes or Home Depot garden center, even most of the plants would be the same.

We jumped over the border into Northern Ireland, just for the heck of it. There was barely even a sign letting you know, definitely no crossing guards.

Driving around aimlessly, I stopped at a stop sign (because you’re supposed to) and suddenly noticed an old castle right next to me.

I found parking right there and we walked up. A sign on the castle gates stated we needed to enter through the cafe. There were several signs stating that the cafe was now open, but the cafe operators obviously did not read them, their door was locked.

We made a very quick stop at the Sligo Abbey ruins, in downtown Sligo, before going back to the Aldi to get some things we needed, like dish soap and salt, things that should have already been here.

Last day and coming home

SDSpivey

It continued being unseasonably cold in Inverness and very windy.

We took a bus tour around town. It was a Hop-on Hop-off brand bus, seemingly popular in Europe, where you buy a day’s ticket and can ride as much as you want and get on and off at will. They also have audio commentary throughout the ride, remarking on features as you pass them.

At one point the bus crosses a canal and is talking about the locks and the lochs, very hard to differentiate by ear.

We walked across a foot bridge to a couple small islands in the River Ness and visited the Botanical Gardens.

The gardens had all sorts of flowering plants, cactus, shrubs, and even vegetables. On a cold day, it really felt good to go into the “tropical house”, even though it was probably on in the 60’s, it felt warm and wonderful.

We also stopped at a weaver’s shop, where you can watch them make wool cloth or tartans. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any one doing it while we were there. The shop had huge amounts of clothes, mostly wool, and souvenirs and a large selection of Scotch whiskey.

I did finally realize why the day seems so long, besides all the walking of course. I checked a program on my phone and got that we were at latitude 57.5, less than 9 degrees from the Arctic Circle, above which you can have at least one day without any sunset.

This also helps explain the cold.

We had to get up early to catch the plane, so I set my alarm on my phone. Early the next morning we were awoken by a loud alarm, but it wasn’t mine. The fire alarm was going off.

We went down, but when I got to the bottom of the stairway, it was just me and another girl. It appears that everyone else decided to ignore safety protocol and take time to get their shoes and jackets and such. Meanwhile, I am standing there in just my pants, no shoes, no shirt. At least I wasn’t wearing shorts.

Since we were up and everyone else was up, we went ahead and took our things and headed next door to the bus stop.

Upon check in at the Inverness airport, they had no record of mom’s flight info and I find out that the airline had changed my schedule after I had already landed in Europe. Since I had a print out of the bookings, the clerk issued a ticket for mom anyway and required us to check in at the next airport, Manchester, in order to fix the scheduling.

I noticed that our seats were not together, despite the seat next to me being empty. So I was able to stretch out a bit on the flight.

When I got home, I realized that I had forgotten where I hid the keys on the back porch, and I didn’t have a light to look for them. But one of the doors wasn’t closed firmly so I was able to get in and turn on the back light. Took me several minutes to find them.

Day 11 and 12, EXPO

SDSpivey

Luckily, we both awoke early enough to get finished with breakfast before the first of the herd of youngsters started coming out. It was strange seeing kids line up for the cafe dispenser, totally ignoring the fruit juices, milk, and even sodas.

We easily jumped onto the Metro and were on our way, but there is a split in the rail path and we ended up going a stop past and having to go back and cross over to the other path.

It was the last stop, so it would have been real hard to miss. The exit dumps you out right at the entry gates to the fairgrounds. We arrived about 8:30, but it didn’t open until 10. So another game of “Let’s wait.”

The main layout of the pavilions is a large walkway with each lined up along the north and south sides, with smaller non-country pavilions spread out behind them or tucked into nooks between.

We started out thinking we could do 2 on one side then jump across and do 2 there, like a square wave pattern, but we realized that there was no reason to keep crossing the 100 yard or so of the main walkway, so we decided just to go down one side only and get the rest tomorrow. We made it all the way down the north side, but it was a long way back to the exit gate, over 2km according to our map.

Not much to say about any of the pavilions specifically, other than the US’s was idiotic. The lady directing everyone where to go pointed toward a long set of stairs. When mom groaned about how many there were, she took pity and asked if we wanted to use the elevator. Obviously, yes. The lift was right next to an escalator, which we took instead, making us wonder why the hell aren’t they using it for everyone? It is already running, no extra power needed. At the rooftop, there was nothing but a bar serving mixed drinks and cocktails, perfect for the hot day we had. The middle floor just had some sparse kiosks with generic information about US agriculture and a generic audio message from Obama welcoming everyone to the Expo. Not that many would understand it, you know, being that it is a foreign country.

I blame John Kerry. As Secretary of State, he is the head of the Expo pavilion committee.

As we headed toward the exit, darkness was falling. We didn’t get back to the hostel until about 11. We grabbed a couple of slices of pizza, knowing nothing else would be available.

Since most places have the food spread out cafeteria style, most of the pizza are rectangular, making best use of space. Because we said we wanted it to go, this place chopped it up into roughly inch sized pieces and gave us forks. I do have to admit, it might have been easier to eat that way, while walking.

We climbed the mountain of stairs to our room and found we had 2 more girls in with us. One was just leaving, but the other only spoke Spanish.

With me being the only guy and at least half of the room speaking Spanish, I feel like a minority. I’m tired enough, I am already asleep by lights out.