Kaiwomaru Park 海王丸パーク

Today is Marine day, a Japan's national holiday. I went Kaiwomaru Park (海王丸パーク) to see Kaiwomaru, a sailing ship, because they hoisted the all sails of it.

Kaiwomaru is the retired ship. Before then, it was a training ship. It was built as a national project. It was designed by a Scotland company and built in the Kobe docks by Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation. It was lunched on 27th January 1930 and retired on 16th September 1989.

City of Inami, Toyama, bought it. They build new park for it in 1992. It is "Kaiwomaru Park". The sailing ship is moored there. Its sails are always furled and hoisted only 10 times a year. I don't learn all its schedule, but I know they always spread sails on Marine day. So I went there today.

It was a sunny day and hot during the drive. I lived in Toyama City, so it's 40 minutes drive to the park. I took the root 8 to west. It isn't difficult to find the way because there are many signboards to lead me there. The load is easy to drive and the traffic is always light. It has enough free parking area.

When I arrived there, they've just hoisted the sails. They do their work slowly with the explanation to audience. When they finished it, they saluted to us and waved their caps. We applaud them.

It seems graceful and is called "Umi no Kifujin 海の貴婦人"(noble lady in the sea)". I uploaded pictures I took. Columns behind the ship in the first picture is the ones for the bullet train, Hokuriku Shinkansen. Once Shinkansen comes, we can see the industrial products both almost a century before and the latest one together.

By the second picture, you can see how large Kaiwomaru is. ( Can you see a cabin cruiser short of Kaiwomaru? ) If there were no clouds, mountains would have appeared beautifully!

My boss, he was once a engineer for manufacturer machines, said that he thought Kaiwomaru was beautiful when its sails were shortened, though most of people preferred to the sails raising shape, because he felt beautiful how to draw its wires. His opinion is unique, isn't it?

Next to Kaiwomaru area, there is the park for birds. They don't feed any birds. There is a small pond and water birds come. We can see from three observation lodges. The center one has several telescope we can use it freely. Most of people don't know and come the bird park. So you can enjoy quiet rest. I recommend to bring a lunch box and rest the east lodge like I do today. The cool breeze was blowing and it was really agreeable to rest.


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Kaiwomaru Park 海王丸パーク
Entrance fee: Free.
Access:
by train
Taking a tram "Manyo-sen 万葉線" from JR Takaoka 高岡 station to Kaiwomaru 海王丸駅. 40 minutes trip.
by car
20 minutes from Kosugi 小杉 exit

Park is always opened. (There is no gate.)

Kaiwomaru 海王丸
Closed:
Monday (if it isn't a national holiday), days after holiday (if it isn't Saturday or Sunday), year-end and new-year, and maintenance term.
Entrance fee: adult:400yen / 6-15 years old: 200yen / under 6 years old: free
Open time: 9:30 am - 5:00 pm. The last entrance time is 4:30 pm. It needs about 30 minutes for looking.

Kaiwo Bird Park 海王バードパーク
Closed:
Monday (if it isn't a national holiday), days after holiday (if it isn't Saturday or Sunday), year-end and new-year
Entrance fee: free
Open time:
9:00 am - 5:00pm (March - June, September - October)
9:00 am - 6:00pm (July - August)
9:00 am - 4:00pm (November - February)