Ishiyama Ryokuchi

Yesterday (Saturday) was the first day Jason has really been able to join us for much exploring. We let him choose from a long list of adventures we've been compiling and ended up visiting Ishiyama Ryokuchi (green space). Ishiyama is an area of Sapporo formerly know for producing nanseki (a soft stone building material and the green space is a park that was developed in a old Sapporo nanseki quarry. It's a fascinating place to explore - an art group was brought in to design the space and the results are artistically/architecturally fascinating while simultaneously being a six-year-old climber's dream:

This part was particularly amazing. It was hard to capture in a picture just how massive this "piece" was. I had Fiona stand in the center to try to show the scale of it. It's called 'Negitive Mound' and was designed to resemble a coliseum. The entire space is made of stone.

This is a model replica of the entire space.

Jason and I were thoroughly impressed with the place. Fiona thought each part was great for about 10 minutes before being ready to move on to "explore something new." I think she was really feeling not having a playmate yesterday. I'm hoping once school gets out here there will be more kids around for her to run around with!