The Beautiful Amagajo Park

Yesterday, we decided to take our Bond family adventuring to the lovely Amagajo Park. We weren't disappointed! Because I am uber lazy today, I'm going to copy and paste this description of the area, for anyone who's interested and so I can remember in years to come. But no worries, this English major will be sure to cite her source! Lazily, and perhaps incorrectly according to proper citation structure, but it'll be cited nonetheless. ;)

"The ruins of Amagajo Castle are at the top of a 120 m hill in the central part of Takaoka-cho in Miyazaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture. The castle was constructed by the Shimazu clan as a fort to defend the border with the territory of the Ito clan, who had sent troops to attack Sadowara Castle in the Shimazu’s territory in 1600, after the Shimazu clan had fought the Battle of Sekigahara on the western side and was defeated by the eastern army led by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The castle was dismantled, however, in 1615 according to the Ikkoku Ichijo (One Castle per Province) order by the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The castle ruins were arranged into Amagajo Park, which is famous as a viewing spot of cherry blossoms. 1.200 Somei Yoshino cherry trees, which were planted 40 years ago, come into bloom all at once in April, after which 5,000 azalea produce wonderful red flowers."

(Taken from: http://nippon-kichi.jp/article_list.do?p=2986&ml_lang=en) <<Told ya! :)

We missed the cherry blossoms, but we were amazed with the gorgeous azaleas. I would argue they are more pink than red, but they are definitely wonderful. Good timing with that one. The lanterns also lit up when it started getting dark. Loved it. We snapped a ton of shots and went down the slide that is on the grounds. Strange slide. It's not very steep, so it has these type of "rollers" on it to keep you going. We went a couple of times, pulling on the sides to keep ourselves going. Those rollers are merciless on the backside, as I'm finding out today. Bridger also thought the slide was quite terrifying. Oops. But all in all, it was fun. 

Our kid is pretty stinkin' cute.

Playing Superman :)

Bridger's loving the lanterns

But the slide? Not so much...

Is this place for real?!

This looks quite horrible hanging over the edge like it is, but I like the pic and want to be able to actually see it. So I'll live with it. :)

"Um, Mom and Dad, why am I in these flowers?"

Sure love these boys