盆栽村

Yesterday was my youngest daughter’s birthday.

She’s twelve now. So now my kids are 12, 13 and 14.

She’s the “baby” of the family…and she’s already almost a teenager! They’re growing up too fast!

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I read about a place in 埼玉県 (Saitama Prefecture) out in the countryside north of Tokyo called 盆栽村 (Bonsai Village) that has many Bonsai gardens.

(Bonsai is the art of clipping and shaping plants (usually small trees)).

I never had an opportunity to go there and I didn’t want to make a special trip all the up there just to look at Bonsai. But today I had to go up in that general area for a few hours…so I decided to check out Bonsai Village on my way home.

There were many beautiful gardens with very nice bonsai…but taking photos was forbidden. I was disappointed about that.

They had some bonsai for sale. The prices were between ¥5000 and ¥50,000 (about U.S. $40 -$400)!

I was able to take this photo of a bonsai tree in someone’s front yard in a house near one of the gardens.

This place really was out in the boonies (American slang. “Boondocks, Sticks, Countryside, Rural”).

There was nothing there. Not at all like urban Tokyo.

I saw a convenience store and it had a parking lot. In Tokyo, like many big cities (NYC, etc), most places don’t have parking lots…if you drive somewhere, you have to find a place to park (hopefully) nearby and walk. Most people in Tokyo use the punctual, clean, safe and affordable public transportation (trains in Tokyo arrive every 3 minutes or so).

Here’s a picture of the train tracks in this countryside town. There’s nothing but trees and farmland for miles.

Here’s a couple of trains coming down that track:

Here’s a couple more videos of trains arriving at the 大宮公園駅 (Oomiya-kouen Station). (One going away from Tokyo, the other going towards):