2 small adventures

Kyle and I went on two small adventures a few days ago.  Nothing too exciting, but enjoyable.  On Sunday we went to Nakajima Park and on Monday we went to the top of the JR Tower.

Sunday we had originally planned to spend the day at the Art Park, but the weather did not cooperate.  The morning saw 2.2 inches of rain (56 mm), mostly falling between 11 and 12 am.  We waited on the rain to stop, but by 1pm, decided the Art Park was too far away to get to spend much time there.  So instead, we took the subway to Nakajima Park, the large park just south of downtown.

Kyle took some nice photographs.

The island in the middle of the pond ("Naka" means inside and "Jima" means island, giving the name to Nakajima Park)

This is a wisteria vine.  Kyle really liked the texture.

I carry all the stuff while Kyle takes pictures. 
(In Kyle's defense, usually he carries the bag)

The waterways through Nakajima Park were all flooded from the earlier rain.  It looked pretty neat, all that muddy water flowing through the creek beds.  The lake was flooded too, but not dangerously so.

Because the creeks were so flooded, we were curious about the main river through Sapporo, the Toyohira River.  We walked along this river before going home.  It was also pretty flooded.  Kyle blogged earlier about the Toyohira River here-- the page includes a couple pictures of the river when it was not in flood in June.  The water in June is blue, not brown.

From the center of a bridge, Kyle and I discussed the best way to take a raft if we were white-water rafting down the river.  Kyle's final decision-- go down the middle and let the water push you right or left.

We decided that we probably couldn't raft through some of other man-made obstacles however.  Although, Kyle speculated that it might be possible if the water were 50% higher.

On Monday, we went up the JR Tower to the 38th floor.  We tried to go when we could catch the sunset, but it was pretty cloudy that day, so the sunset was more like a sky-darkening event.

The road in the center of the photo runs on either side of the canal by our house.  We often go running along this canal, and sometimes we take it to go to the beach on our bicycles.

On top of the Century Royal Hotel is a round structure that reminds me of the Space Needle without any legs.  I think there is a restaurant inside, but I'm not certain.

Family photo.

That's all for now,
-Bre (and Kyle)