Odawara Flower Garden

 Emi was inspired, she said she was going to the Odawara Flower Garden to see the roses. I asked when she was going, she said "now"! So off we went.

It took us about an hour to get from Yokosuka to Odawara by train and then we took a local train from Odawara to here - kind of the middle of nowhere. From this station it's a 20 minute walk to the Flower Garden. By-the-way, it's a 20 minute walk up hill, a steep hill, all-the-way!

We finally arrived at the flower park. It's a big place and the admission is free.

Emi joined a guided tour - very educational. Me, I just walked around on my own taking pictures of flowers.

A rose is a rose is a rose?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

-- William Shakespeare

This place is full of roses

-- Me

Okay, I've had enough roses, I need people.

I became more interested in the other people in the garden that were looking at the roses.

Some people weren't even looking at the flowers, they were just goofing off. 

Smile!

Double protection - parasol and sun hat.

She just learned a lesson, rose bushes have thorns.

I have to admit, I'm glad I came here today; this place is nice.

I stumbled across the guided tour.

And, there's Emi!

All kinds of people love flowers.

Like I said, this place is big.

There are walking paths, streams and even a pond.

Water lilies are blooming in the pond.

Time for lunch. There were lunch trucks in the picnic area so we got some curry rice; very delicious.

Now it was time to enter the indoor tropical garden. Admission is 200 yen unless one is 65 years old or older then it's free - lucky me! 

The glass ceiling.

Lots of tropical flowers.

If one takes a close look at this one... 

You'll see that it's very popular with the ants.

Back outside I wondered around while Emi checked out the flower shop.

A walk in the park is always worthwhile.

The outside of the tropical garden.

Enough was enough and we headed back down the hill to the train station. This train was going in the opposite direction than we needed.

This is our train.

Inside the train. It's an old train but it's clean and it's getting us where we need to go.

End of the line, everybody off!

Last shot of the day: Inside Odawara station where we're transferring to the train that will take us home.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mike

Bonus shots!