City Spotlight: Ikuta Park area (Kawasaki)

I know Kawasaki city well, and although I love it, I can tell you it's not exactly renowned for its beauty and nature. That said, if you get away from the city centre, you can find some pretty spots. One of the most natural areas in Kawasaki is Tama ward, and one of Kawasaki's best attractions is Ikuta Park.

The park is lush and green, covering a large area, with seasonal flowers and various attractions. You could do a lot of walking if you wanted to. In the park you can visit Nihon Minka-en and the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, among other things.

Nihon Minka-en, aka the 'Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum' is a collection of historic houses from various parts of Japan, brought to Kawasaki and carefully re-erected and preserved so that visitors can see the traditional architecture. Even if you're not interested in history, this park is quite pretty and atmospheric in its own right. When we went, they had volunteer staff in the houses, caring for the fires and chatting to visitors. It does have some signs and information in English - obviously not as much as in Japanese.

Taro Okamoto was a famous artist who did a lot of abstract pieces. His hometown was Kawasaki. At this museum you can see a lot of his works, both paintings and sculptures. I'm not a big art fan and I don't know much about it, but I enjoyed looking through this gallery and pondering the meaning of the various pieces. The museum is easy to spot, with the distinctive white sculpture behind the entrance.



There are other attractions in Ikuta Park, like a planetarium and science museum for youth, but having never been to these, I can't comment. If you want more info about opening hours etc, check out this page, which is part of the City of Kawasaki website - a good place to find info about Kawasaki and get tourist info.

The closest station is Mukogaoka-yuen station (Odakyu line, a 15-minute walk); the closest JR station is Noborito on the Nambu line (a 20 minute walk from the station, it takes about half an hour to get to Noborito from Kawasaki station).

(It strikes me that considering this blog is called 'Yokohama Vibe', I tend to post more about Kawasaki than Yokohama. My logic is that Kawasaki is so much less famous, and there's less info on the web about it, so this may be of more interest. Plus, since I lived near the 'border' of Kawasaki and Yokohama, I always spent a lot of time in both cities.)