Kids-friendly Japan trip- Rainy day activities

(My Japan trip report is still going..I will try to finish it quickly but please be patient! )

This trip was focused on my parents, so I didn't really tell many of my friends that we were coming, but we couldn't miss a chance to catch up with my close friend Yuri. I did some research for the places where kids can enjoy themselves and picked this place called "Asobono".  It's an indoor play centre. The day we caught up was raining hard so it was good that we picked an indoor place to meet. However, because of the weather, Asobono was super busy with many kids and families. It was a weekday but we had to wait about 30mins to get in and we also couldn't get an all-day ticket, which was cheaper. (When it's busy, they limit the number of all day tickets to sell). 

many kids and parents

where is Nico?

They had many sections which we could enjoy - a huge ball pool, toy trains, wooden toys, kitchen toys and so on. Except for the ball pool section, it was a bit like bigger version of someone's home, where kids can play with toys that aren't theirs, so I wasn't quite sure if it's worth paying and waiting to get in this play centre. 

love father and son time;-)

this is Nico's favourite type of toy

little kids friendly space

If you're visiting from overseas though, it might be interesting to see Japanese toys. Especially their "pla rail' (plastic train set) collection, which was massive! The good thing is that both of Yuri's kids and Nico enjoyed it so much that they didn't want to leave. 

pla rail

For me, it was really really nice to see Nico and Yuri's kids were playing together and laughing together. When we were studying at uni together, I didn't really imagine this would happen. I'm also happy that our friendship has been lasting so long, even though we're in different countries.

Yuri and Me and kids

After the play centre, we went to a cafe which was specializing Japanese sweets. 

They became friends!

Match crepe cake!

It wasn't easy for us to walk in the heavy rain with kids from the station to the play centre (it was only about 150m) and the centre to the cafe (which was about 50m), but we had a really lovely day. Of course Nico slept in the train all the way back home:-) 


with love
Allie