15 Days in Kanagawa & Hokkaido – Day 10 – Moerenuma Park

While Nakajima Park was always on our itinerary for Day 10 morning, Moerenuma Park wasn’t anywhere on our itinerary initially. The park isn’t in Sapporo Central but on the outskirts, though accessible by Bus 76 from Kitasanjuyojo Station, with the bus running every 30 minutes. The park is huge, with a reported park circumference of four kilometres. There were very few visitors to the park on this Saturday morning. We ran into perhaps just 3–4 locals having their jogs or walks, and maybe another half-dozen visitors in the far distance – and that’s it. We pretty much had the entire park to ourselves. The park is also well known for its glass pyramid and a play mountain. We didn’t cover the entire park in the roughly 1.5 hours we spent there before heading out, as the weather was, again, cold!

The park was blanketed with several inches of snow, so it was difficult in several places to see where the lawn, pavement and ledges were – so much so that both H and the wife misjudged one particular ledge and fell at the same time.

One lesson I’ve learned about photography in winter where there is generous snowfall: dial the exposure compensation upwards because the camera judges incorrectly the actual amount of light in the scene and typically underexposes the faces of human subjects. The photos here were set to +1 EV, after which a small amount of haze removal alongside an increase in whites was implemented.

Both making snow angels.
Kids rolled along sideways and even wanted to do forward rolls in the several inches of snow.
The wife quipped that this park in winter looks like it’s a scene out from a distant planet!
A very brave raven flew down to interact with the kids, thinking they had food in their hands.
Peter was having so much fun with the snow we had to frequently turn around to make sure we hadn’t lost him.
The kids tried sliding down the play mountain, but no luck – there wasn’t a thick enough snow layer on it to permit sledding.
So many opportunities for pictures of trees in winter.
Brushing snow off leaves.
Hardly anyone in the park besides us.

We kept Day 10 easy and returned to the hotel to rest after the visit to these two parks. Next – Day 11’s visit to Takino Suzuran Hillside Park Snow World!