The Best Children's Sports Park and Obstacle Course in Tokyo!

I found a most wonderful place to take the kids for a day out in the sun and for some great excitement, fun, sports and adventure. It is called Heiwa no Mori Koen Field Athletic Course (平和の森公園 フィールドアスレチックコース)  and it's about a ten minute walk from Keihin Kyuko Heiwajima station or a ten minute bus ride from JR Omori station. 


The Heiwa no Mori Koen Field Athletic Course is an obstacle course for kids. The entire course, from start to finish has 40 obstacles that the kids have to challenge. There's climbing giant rope and wood jungle gym types of structures to climbing over walls using ropes to jungle bars and rowing across ponds full of deadly piranhas (oh, and I'm kidding about the piranhas part). You and your child could have a wonderful time at this fun park.


I'd say that it is best for children between the ages of 6 to 12 but younger ages will also have a blast at this park as mom and dad can help them out with the obstacles that are too scary!


Yesterday, I went there with a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds to chaperon for a birthday party and I also wanted to check out the facilities. I was very impressed. The Heiwa no Mori Koen Field Athletic Course is run by the local government (please don't get me started on what the heck the local government is doing running an athletic course for kids, as that's another story) but admission for children was an incredibly low ¥100! Adults are ¥360!


Okay. I've found the best and cheapest place to enjoy a Saturday or Sunday in Tokyo for under ¥500! Parking is available and dirt cheap (I parked for more than three hours and it was only ¥600).


This place is a real diamond in the rough, folks! I think this is one of the best and most refreshing and healthy places you could take your kids to on a day and have some real fun!


The kids love it!... (Thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Humphrys) 

Here is a map of the park at the entrance featuring all the obstacles. See a larger map online here.

Looks daunting. It is, but safe. Kids start at the left, climb over the log, up the ramp, 

then climb down the rope ladder on the other side.

In the west they might call this the Tom Sawyer ride. In Japan it's like Issun Boshi.

There were about 5 huge structures like this that are fun to look at as they 

are to challenge and climb! Take your child and have them bring a few friends! 

Great for a kid's birthday party!

Heck, this one looked so fun even I wanted to ride it... (But I'm afraid of heights!)

Not quite as tough as the Marines or Navy Seals, but pretty darned tough for an 8 year old... 

What kid wouldn't go crazy over riding in a basket over the dangerous valley?

Speaking of danger, watch out for the crocodiles and piranhas! Moms! Dads! 

Definitely need to bring extra clothes & shoes two kids fell in when I was there! 

The kids would get to the top of one of these and want to stay there. 

I had to tell them to hurry to the next obstacle.

This area kind of reminded me of Disneyland's Adventureland... 

It just looked like fun and the obstacles didn't disappoint! At this obstacle

kids had to help each other to get across. Team work!

Running across the floating logs? Yep. Scary and a distinct possibility of getting wet!

Older kids can do this... But I even saw parents with 3 or 4 years old kids 

and the moms and dads carried their kids while they challenged 

the obstacles... A great time together!

Great fun. Exercise. The Outdoors. Camraderie. 

What more could a parent want for their child?

I give Heiwa no Mori Koen Field Athletic Course (平和の森公園 フィールドアスレチックコース) 5 stars for a great cheap place to take your children where they can spark their imagination with adventure and get a day out and some great exercise. It's fun, cheap and a wonderful memory!

NOTES:

1) Definitely take at least one pair of extra clothes and shoes in case your child falls into the water.

2) There are no restaurants or coffee shops nearby 

3) There are no shower facilities.

4) There is another park outside so if you want to have a birthday party there, you'll need to have the cake and pizza or sandwiches at the park outside the entrance of the athletic course.

5) I hear it gets crowded on weekends around lunchtime so I recommend getting there early!

6) If the course weren't crowded, then I expect that it should take an hour or two to complete depending on the age of your child.

Here's a great explanation and more detailed photos of entire course (in Japanese).

Heiwa no Mori Koen Field Athletic Course 

(平和の森公園 フィールドアスレチックコース) 

Address: 

Heiwa no Mori Koen 2-1

Ohta-ku, Tokyo

Te: 03-3766-1607

Business hours: 

Opens at 9:30 am (last entrance at 15:00) Closed at 16:00 

Closed on Mondays and bad weather days

Entrance fee: 

Children and Junior high school students: ¥100

Above high school and adults: ¥360 

Heiwa no Mori Koen Field Athletic Course URL (Sorry Japanese only): http://www.city.ota.tokyo.jp/shisetsu/sports/fieldathletics.html

Map: 

Helicopter Cruises in Tokyo! A Fantastic Experience! Romantic, Exciting and VERY Reasonably Priced!

I have found one of the the most fun and exciting things to do in Tokyo and that is going on a breath-taking helicopter cruise around the city at day or night. There is a company named Excel Air Service Inc. that now offers helicopter cruises around Tokyo that are fantastically fun and the memory of a lifetime.

I took my wife and son to Disneyland on Thursday and then we stayed in a hotel overnight. The next day we went to Excel Air Service at Urayasu Heliport to ride on their wonderful helicopter cruising service. Urayasu Heliport is just a few minutes from Disneyland. Excel Air Service the service that caters to big Hollywood stars and executives when they visit Japan. People like Tom Cruise "cruise" over Tokyo using Excel Air Service so you know they are the best and the safest! (Sorry, I couldn't resist the "cruise" joke!)

This one seats eight. There are several helicopters available.

Incredibly, the prices for the helicopter cruises are unbelievably reasonable. My son and I went on a 20-minute flight during the day (all together we spent nearly two hours having fun at the heliport and lounge) and we had a blast. I expected prices to be in the neighborhood of ¥40,000 to ¥50,000 for each person, but no! The price was about ¥22,000, including everything, for the two of us! 

When you enter the Excel Air Service lounge, you will be greeted by the check-in clerk just like you would at any airport... Of course, it's a helicopter heliport! 

The heliport has a lounge that is comparable to a VIP lounge at Narita for a big airlines like JAL or ANA. Top quality service and a free drink menu!

There is an outdoor patio area that over looks the beautiful Pacific Ocean and a nice view of Disneyland and Disney-Sea. I imagine that this is the place that guys would want to bring out the ring and propose (maybe after the flight?)

Our helicopter (this really is the helicopter that we rode on) coming back for a landing.

I took this photo of Tokyo Sky Tree. Click on image for larger view. Wow! It was a breath-taking view and Tokyo for as far as the eye could see!

Leave Urayasu Heliport, go around Ginza, circle Tokyo Sky Tree, and back. 

Wow! What a fantastic helicopter tour over Tokyo!

I can imagine that, as word gets out about this wonderful helicopter cruising service over Tokyo and the world's tallest structure, Tokyo Sky Tree, that this cruising in a helicopter service over Tokyo is going to become one of the hottest romance spots in town. I can see this as being the ultimate place to propose marriage and, heck, just to hold hands! What excitement! What fun! 

To get to Excel Air Service Inc. Go to Maihama station (the station you go to get get to Disneyland) and take the free bus shuttle (about 5 minutes by bus). By car? Free parking too!

〒279-0032

千葉県

浦安市千鳥14番地

浦安ヘリポート

Tel: 047-380-5555

Chidori 14 Banchi

Urayasu City

Chiba Prefecture

279-0032

Tel: 047-380-5555

Map: 

If you go by car, look for this sign by the side of the road... 

"May You Live in Interesting Times" - Sounds Like Fun, But it's a Curse!

"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." - Confucious

The Chinese have some really great, ancient quotes. "May you live in interesting times" is probably my favorite. It sounds like a wish for good fortune, but it's not. It's a curse. It's a wish for terrible things. When I was young (and much stupider than I am now), when I first heard, "May you live in interesting times", I thought it meant having fun. I thought it was "interesting" as in "going to see an interesting concert" or "watching a very exciting and interesting movie." I heard this statement and thought, "Yeah! Way to go, baby! Those Chinese know how to paaaaartay! That sounds fun!"

Great Chinese philosopher dude: smart man or wise ass? (See? If you look closely, he's actually  smirking!)

Parties? Drinking? Having Fun? Meeting girls? That's sounds interesting to me. It wasn't until years later that I fully understood that when these Chinese wise men say, "interesting" and I say, "interesting" we are talking about two totally different things.

"Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." - Winston Churchill

But, you know what? As you get older, you do realize how this knife cuts both ways. I'll bet that, if you were Polish in 1939, French in 1940, or Russian in 1941; or a German or Japanese citizen living in a big industrial city in 1944 or 1945 and being bombed every night, those were real interesting times. 

I'm sure living in this neighborhood around the time this tank drove by was a real hootenanny! A regular Shindig!

Of course, throughout history there are millions of examples of interesting times... The black plague, the fall of Rome, the potato famine, the Great Depression, just to name a few... Heck, how about today? Today, there's more interesting things going on than you could shake a stick at: how about Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Burma... And let's not leave out the United States! How about being one of almost 46 million people on food stamps or one of the more than 25% of all American children living under the poverty line or the more than 15% of all Japanese who can say the same? 


There's so many people and places that are living through such interesting times that I can't even list them up! I'll bet wondering if you'll have food or electricity or even live until tomorrow is real interesting for those folks... 

"Paaaaaaar-tay!"

Yeah. Those all sound like real fun, eh? Real interesting every day and night. A real barrel of laughs.


"May you live in interesting times."


Even though this quote is customarily attributed to the Chinese, the origins of this quote seem to be in question in some quarters. Some English scholars claim that since there is no written record of the original of this quote in Chinese, then the origins of this as being Chinese are highly questionable. I think that is nonsense. 


To be totally anal-retentive (like these scholars): Chinese culture is over 4,000 years old. The first records of writing in China are 1,200 years old. Some argue that most parts of the bible many use were written in the last 800 years. So to claim that the quote, "May you live in interesting times" - whose origins have been attributed to China for years (other old non-English speaking societies  also attribute this to China) - is not Chinese seems silly and pointless to me.


Who cares if you are living in such interesting times that you are worried about your skin or where you will sleep that night, what you are your children will eat, or if you are even going to wake up tomorrow?


There is, though, unarguable proof of another ancient Chinese quote that I believe is the root of this saying. That quote goes like this: 


"It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period." 


If you can speak more than one language than I imagine that you can see how, "May you live in interesting times" and, "It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period" Could have the same roots, or even be the same statement; or even be kissing cousins. 


Anyway, does it matter? 

Louis Armstong seems to be a guy who had a good time and a positive attitude all the time.

As Louis Armstrong would say, "You say eether, I say eyether... Let's call the whole thing off."


Yeah. What difference does it make? May you live in interesting times is most certainly a curse. It doesn't seem like it at first, and probably wouldn't to a young person, under 30... But when you get past 40 and you have kids and a lot of bills to pay and things to worry about, you certainly don't need more "interesting things" on your plate to worry about.


Damn Chinese! How could they have been so stinking smart so many years ago?


Now, at 54, I don't want things to be too interesting anymore. A little bit is fine, but not too much. I don't want to fear or want too much. I don't want things to be too interesting.


I want to go to work everyday and do some work. I want to have everyone understand what it is that were supposed to be doing and everyone to be productive and happy people. I don't want to go to work and find out that the company is nearing bankruptcy. I don't want to go to work and hear Mr. Fujita and Mr. Morimoto fighting like squalling little children. I don't want to find out that our accountant has stolen company money and taken off to Thailand with the president's secretary (even though, with her, I'd think about doing that too!) 

Writer's rendition of the perfect sexy Japanese secretary

No. I don't want these interesting things happening to me. They can happen to other people. I don't care. But not to me. I want things to be boring and the same.


After work, I want to come home and eat dinner and relax. I don't want to head home and have the trains stop because of an accident due to someone committing suicide or a train crash. I don't want to come home and find out that the roof leaks, the car needs repair, people from the government tax office are coming over tomorrow, the neighbors are getting a divorce or that there was a fire down the street. 


Sometimes, after work, I want to go have drinks with my friends. I want to go to the restaurant and eat nice food and laugh. I don't want to see people fight or fall down in the road dead drunk (especially if it's me). I don't want to come home and wake up with food poisoning in the middle of the night or with a hellacious hangover the next day either. 

Crisis? What crisis?

I want to spend weekends with the kids and family, if I can. It's okay to work on weekends, we all gotta work, but I don't want to work all the time. I want to wake up early on Saturday, write some boring blog posts (like this one), take out the boring trash, cook some boring breakfast and then take the family to someplace boring that they will have fun at (and I will probably think is pretty boring)... Spending time with the family is not risky, scary or dangerous. It's not supposed to be. Nope. It's boring and relaxing. I want to do that every weekend. I want things to be boring and the same.  


I want to go on vacations with the wife and kids. I want the flights to be boring and safe and not to be hassled at the airport. I don't want the airport people asking me too many questions; I don't want too much turbulence on the flight; I don't want the plane to crash and I certainly don't want to be in the hotel when there is a fire. I want the swimming pool at the hotel to be clean and not too cold. I don't want anyone stealing our towels or breaking into our hotel room or my house back in Japan when I'm away. 


In many ways, I want things to be boring and the same. 


Now, with the economy going down the crapper and the European Union along with the Euro looking like it really is, finally, going to collapse, along with the US dollar; Japanese public debt at 229% of GDP... and just one year after the biggest earthquake in Japan's (the entire world's?) history, I don't want - I don't need - any more excitement or these sorts of "interesting" things happening in our lives...


I want to have a good job, a roof over our heads, warmth, security and clean food and water. I want to enjoy life and maybe have some fun along the way. 


I most certainly don't want anyone, smirking Chinese philosophers especially, saying to me, "May you live in interesting times." This year is shaping up to be enough "interesting" for a lifetime.


Today? Have a good day. Be kind to those along the way and smile. Hug your kids (or parents) and stay alert.


Tomorrow portends to be another interesting day. Have a great one!

LOUIS ARMSTRONG - WHEN YOU'RE SMILING

Holidays and In-Laws Driving You Crazy? "Find Your Center"

Just came back from a vacation and wanted to relate a story that happened when I just arrived on a southern Pacific island. 

Buddha on Tumon in Guam

From past experience, and my feelings of irritation, I knew that at the moment when we arrived on the island, my in-laws might drive me crazy. You know, it was the typical story with old people; forgetting things; worrying about unimportant nonsense; taking 15 minutes to do something that most people could do in 20 seconds....


We arrived at the island airport after midnight. Everyone was tired and sleepy. We checked into to the hotel bus service which would drive us all to the hotel for free. 


We had two luggage carriers with three pieces of luggage on each. I received the six luggage tags from the limousine service to put on our bags for the bus.  I started putting the luggage tags on the three pieces of luggage on my cart and handed three luggage tags to them to put on the three bags on their cart. I finished attaching the tags. I stood up and, of course, there was some confusion at their cart. The tag numbers were wrong (?) or were they? No! There weren't enough tags.

Oh Lordy! I thought, "How hard could it be to properly attach three tags to three pieces of luggage." I walked over to calmly investigate. Sure enough, they were two tags short. 


"What happened to the three tags I just gave you?" I asked.


"Oh? We put two of them on your luggage." I rolled my eyes. I looked at my cart and sure enough, they had put two of their tags on my cart's luggage. Why? Hell if I know. For 1/2 a second steam came out my ears.... I caught myself and I smiled. Then I removed the tags from my luggage and put them on theirs... I won't go into details of how they started using a pen to alter the numbers on the tags for some reason. Once again a simple 30 second process took over fifteen minutes of time.


I turned back to the nice young man at the service counter. He said, "First time in Guam?"


"Nope!" I answered. Smiling I said, "First time with the in-laws and the entire family so all I have to do is try to be patient and keep calm...." I scrunched up my face and whispered to the guy like I was going nuts and said, "BECAUSE, BLESS THEIR HEARTS, SOMETIMES THEY DRIVE ME CRAZY!"

It was then and there, the Great Buddha who lived within the heart and soul of that young man came out and spread wisdom to me he put his hands together and smiled knowingly at me and said,


"Find your center, man!"


I really laughed. What wisdom. That's right. "Find your center, man!" All I had to do was to find my center and take it easy. I couldn't allow these things to irritate me... Oh, and trust that there were many things they did that irritated me. But, by remembering what that young man said,  I was able to stay cool (for the most part) and chill out. I was able to expect these things would happen and so, when they did, they didn't bother me.


Fifteen minutes to decide whether or not it is cold or hot enough so that they need to take a sweater with them when we are driving in our own car anyway? No problem. Calling a hotel to make special dinner reservations for a dinner that always gets sold out yet calling the wrong restaurant? No sweat (I knew I should have called myself anyway). Wanting to take a hour to shop in a clothes store that doesn't seem to have 50 pieces of wardrobe in the entire store that is the size of 1/2 a convenience store? Sure. Knock yourselves out.


Hell, I wasn't going anywhere.


Another thing that helped me to have a better and more relaxing time was to write in my notes as my daily goals every day as my number one priority was:


1) I am relaxed & patient & having fun 12/23/11


I wrote that as my #1 priority goal first thing when I woke up every morning while on vacation. It helped my subconscious to remember it and it helped me to forget about work and problems at the office.  

  


I also wrote at the top of my notes every morning,


"In Guam. Find your center." It helped me to relieve stress and have more fun. I think whether you  re in a south Pacific island or not, writing your goals and finding your center can help you to be happier and more productive and stress-free. Try it everyday in 2012.


NOTE: Write down your goals everyday for a better, more successful and happier you. http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/2011/06/pocket-notebooks-secret-of-millionaires.html