Tulips From This Spring

Before I proceed any further, I would like to wish:

A Happy Wesak Day
Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.

By this time of the year, the tulips' season is already over but if you were to notice, there aren't any entries related to tulips so far. Hence, this will be the one. More than a fortnight ago, there was a trip organised for us the international students to Echigo Hillside Park as the day happened to be Showa Day, a public holiday in Japan. It didn't start as nice as it should have been, mainly due to some irresponsible acts by some, which I shall not talk about it in this entry. Anyway, it was the same location that I went to last year.

The main section of Echigo Hillside Park.

Echigo Hillside Park park was opened in July 1998 on the Japan Sea coast. The basic theme of the park is "Learn from heaven, play on earth and meet people at Koshino-sato sanctuary". The park was built so people could pursue outdoor recreation or cultural activities. It is located on the West side of Nagaoka in Niigata prefecture on hills ranging from 80-260 meters above sea level. As a result, various land formations, snowy hills and many kinds of animals and plants can be seen in this park.

The spot where most of the children can be spotted - the playground.

Having been to the park previously, the only thing that made me going there for a second time was the tulips in the park.

This year however, there was a slight change on the location of the tulips as there were placed on slopes and it certainly gave a different effect as it really enhanced the beauty of the tulips. I reckon the numbers of tulips this year were much more compared to last year and the sunny day with cool spring breeze blowing through our body once in a while made it a perfect day for us.

That building is where some restaurants and resting area are located.

Colourful tulips decorating the park.

Some crossed-breed tulips I suppose.

I somehow heart the subtle colours combination of these tulips.

The view of the tulips is nothing less beautiful than the carpet of lavenders I witnessed in Hokkaido last summer. The tulips there came in a variety of colours and the view is just too nice for me to find any fitting words to describe them.

Rows of red and yellow tulips.

Orange and yellow tulips, with a cute pumpkin-shaped statue on the top right.

How could I leave without having a picture in the middle of the tulips =P

By the way, like I have mentioned previously, there were only four of us who went to the park.

From left: Aniza, Atikah, Kubota sensei, me and Hafiz.

Not only does the park offer the common type of tulips we usually see elsewhere, but there are some rare species of tulips which have unusual pattern of petals and colours in this park as well. Here are a few examples of the tulips which I guess we do not come across them very often.

Of all the tulips I saw there, this has to be the cutest one.

Looking at the shape and striking color, it appears that it is just like any other tulips.

However, they have a special name for it - Mickey Mouse.

We later went for a walk along the walking path through the deciduous trees which stretches for about three kilometres, and eventually came to an observatory deck in the middle of the walk. The observatory stretches to three floors and we decided to take a rest there before we continued our walk. The greenery of the forest beneath was quite some sight as we could see the different layers of trees and tones through the dynamic mountain range.

Here are the four people who took us to the park. Two of them have retired, after having taught in my kosen for more than thirty years, another one is currently still teaching in the same kosen, while the woman is the person who is in charge of the kosen's library.

From left: Yamaguchi sensei, Hafiz, Iwata sensei, Kubota sensei, me and Sato sensei.

Before we leave the park for the next destination, I spotted some kolam on the floor along the flower promenade along the way out from the park, which were made of dried petals of tulips. What was written there was ありがとう (arigatou) and it was to commemorate the 10th anniversary since the park was opened to the public.

Allow me to camwhore for one last time.

The mascot of the park was among the designs for the kolam and it was too cute that it attracted some attention from a little kid.

You would not want to know what happened after that to the flowers.