Jody and I visited Hikarigaoka Park (AKA Grant Heights) on July 20, 2017. Since April 3, 2017, we have been living in Japan at Soka University where Jody is a visiting guest lecturer. This park is the childhood home of my friend, Karen Williams, who has such fond memories of her life here as a child until she and her family left in 1972. However, this didn't use to be a park. It was formerly a U.S. military base: https://en.japantravel.com/tokyo/hikarigaoka-park/611. After the military left, the Japanese government converted the entire base into a beautiful park. Jody and I have traveled extensively around Japan since arriving and have seen many parks. This one was special, not only for its connection to Karen, but also because of its beauty and tranquility. It is clearly a treasure to the surrounding community and is known to be pretty much off of the beaten path, lying just outside Tokyo proper. The pictures help tell the story. Jody and I look forward to getting together with Karen to discuss our mutual Japanese experience when we return to Sarasota, Florida in August, 2017.
Our first view of the park as we approach the entrance from the subway.
My welcome to Hikarigaoka Park!
One of our major problems has been that neither Jody nor I speak Japanese. Thus, we are unsure what this statue signified.
We entered the local library as we understood that there was a section devoted to Grant Heights.
This was the first of several pictures hanging in the Grant Heights section.
This is the Grant Heights section. Virtually all of the books in this section were in Japanese.
Map of the park.
We began circumnavigating the entire park. It was a weekday, Thursday, and there weren't big crowds, just various cyclists, joggers, walkers, and people enjoying the serenity of the park.
There were numerous rest stops like this one located throughout the park.
The West entrance to the park.
Our only disappointment was being able to locate the park's plaque. We spoke with the library staff while visiting and showed them this picture. The language barrier was considerable. They had no idea where this plaque was located and the one staff person with the best English looked at the writing on the plaque and said it belonged to a different park. Go figure.
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