18th August, 2025

Doorways

A thought for your day, with my good wishes to all …

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

— Milton Berle

Since we’re thinking about doors, have a look at these beauties situated in a field of yellow in Japan’s Showa Kinen Park this past spring. While a look at maps will show you this national park is in Akishima and Tachikawa, both those areas are part of Tokyo.

Showa Kinen is a national park and, at 165.3 hectares/just over 408 acres, it’s the largest in Tokyo. To get a sense of scale, New York City’s Central Park is 341 hectares, or 408 acres. England’s RIchmond Park, a tube/train ride from London, sprawls out over 1,000 hectares/2,500 acres.

Showa Kinen is splendid, and this rapeseed field represents merely one corner of its massive grounds. I came across this field after meandering through a gorgeous stand of mature cherry trees/sakura. My timing was fortunate. While I’d seen Tokyo’s cherry blossoms at their peak in late March and early April, they were mostly finished for the season on April 17th, when I visited Showa Kinen. Here, though, there were still some lovely blossoms – on the trees and, in some instances, flitting down to lawns and pathways.

If you’re unfamiliar with Tokyo, it could seem a little daunting to make your way here by transit, yet it’s actually a simple route. In the video below, I mentioned the route I took from the Ueno Park station, yet that’s only one of the options from Ueno Station. It’s a journey of roughly 90 minutes each way, and more than worth it.

For me, the challenging aspect of the journey was where to go once I exited Tachikawa Station. That said, as you’ll see in the video, there is plenty of signage. I asked a couple of young women for help with directions, and it turned out I was on the correct area of the raised walkway – which has various exit points and stairs or elevators down to street level.

Based on the directions I’d downloaded, I thought I needed to catch a bus once I got to street level. It pays to check, though. Having made my way to a bus stop with a Showa Kinen sign, I double checked directions with a gentleman who was walking by … and it turned out that hopping on a bus from that location would have taken me away from the park, which was a mere three blocks in the other direction! Once the gentleman pointed out the park, it was clear that it had been in my line of vision almost immediately after I took the steps down from the walkway. Sometimes, we don’t see the forest for the trees.

This park is incredible, and I’d happily return again and again. It would be lovely to see it in different seasons.

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All images © 2025 Shelagh Donnelly. All rights reserved.

If you’d like to see more of my travel videos and pics, you’re welcome to join me on Instagram and YouTube , and you don’t need your own accounts to access these accounts.