Showa Forest Park(Showa-no-mori)

 In August 2020, I went to Shōwa no Mori (Shōwa Forest) Park. The park is located in Chiba City in Chiba Prefecture. The nearest station is Toke Station on the JR line. The area of the park is 105.8 hectare. The North-South length is 2.3 kilometers. The East-West length is 0.8 kilometers. This is the largest park in Chiba City.

 The park has a lot of nature so many kinds of flowers and trees, wild birds and insects can be seen throughout the four seasons. However, beware of dangerous creatures such as bees and wild boars. I didn't see the boars, but I was scared because there was a big bee.

 Admission to the park is free, but there is a charge for the baseball field, soccer fields, tennis court, bicycle rental and parking lot.

 I walked from Toke Station to the park; I could see something like a small mountain. It was Shōwa no Mori Park. There is a parking area at the entrance but there were no cars. I was surprised that there were no people in the park.

 I was hungry, so I had lunch (only bread) at the summerhouse because the sun was strong. After the lunch, I walked around the park and I found an observatory. The view from there was very good. I could see the pond in the foreground, and the coast (called Kujyūkuri coast) in the distance. The average altitude of Chiba City is 21 meters, but the altitude of the observatory is 101 meters so this is the highest place in the city.

 When I walked away from there, I found some flowers. They were the same flowers as in Chiba Park (I went to the park in July 2020). I didn’t know their name, but they smelled good. I discovered that their name is Abelia (Abelia × Grandiflora) because the name was written on the sign. There were other flowers too, and when I was watching them, I heard a low humming noise. I was surprised because I niticed a big bee. It was scary. I was scared so I left the place slowly.

 There is a mountain path called “Autumn Road”. I guess that there are plants in full bloom in autumn every year, but there were just a lot of trees when I walked the path. All trees are probably Japanese cedar.There was a sign at entrance of the path, and it said “Watch out for wild boars”, but I didn’t see any.

 As soon as I started walking, I found a strange dark brown thing. I thought it was a little scary when I saw it. It was a tree, and the tree was falling and dying. There were a lot of falling and dying trees in the forest, so they were blocking some paths. I thought the path was scary because it was dim, so I was relieved when I left the path.

 I found a bamboo forest in front of me when I left the path. I wanted to see the bamboo forest well, but I didn’t have much time. So I took a few pictures and started heading back towards the entrance.

 I was in the deep part of the forest, so it was hard to go back. I hurriedly walked uphill because I didn’t have much time. I was very tired, but I was relieved because I was able to return to the observatory. After that, I was able to turn back the way I came, and I safely returned to the entrance.

 In the end, I walked for about 90 minutes and met only 10 people. The park was too large and I didn’t have much time so I could only explore about half of the park. So I thought that I want to come again when the flowers bloom.