Wakamiya park

If you have kids and are in the Kanazawa area, this is a great park that is next to small pool and nice nice big grassy area. There’s also a pond as well.

The equipment is old but it’s big and has lots of activities for the kids.

The pool is usually for Kanazawa residents so it’s ¥200, but out of area people can enjoy it for ¥400 or double the price.

My kids really enjoyed the zip line… over and over and over again and because it was summer, we had fun chasing down the cicadas (semi). After a while, though, they just look like big flies…

It’s a hidden gem, and since we have hit up almost every park in the area, we feel this is one of the better ones.

Here’s a map just in case you don’t find it right away on Google and let us know if you’ve been to any other good parks in the area!

Ishi no Sato Park

I found this park on the Japanese blog and thought I’d share my experiences there with you.

If you find yourself in Kanazawa during the summer, have small kids, and have a rent-a-car, then a short, half-day excursion to Ishi no Sato Park might be your thing.

It’s deep in the mountains about an hour drive on local roads from downtown Kanazawa, and is a very fresh, little portion of river perfect for kids to cool off in during the hot summer.

After driving down the highway, you will start coming into rice fields and be driving through some pretty countryside roads but that’s part of the fun.

Once you get there, there’s a small parking lot and you can walk down to the river there.

There are three main portions of the river, upstream, middle, and a little bit downriver where the ponds are deeper.

The deeper portions, actually all the portions have little fish.

We brought some nets and some little plastic buckets from Daiso, but there was no way we were catching those fish. They were so fast, we were dreaming if we thought we were gonna catch one of them.

The water was cool and really made for a pleasant experience…

until a bus load of kids from the local school pulled up and turned the once serene stream into a loud rambunctious playground.

I’ll let the pics speak for themselves.

Hopefully you won’t run into this situation and to be honest, I think it’s rare. However, it does happen, and we were lucky that we got a few hours of playtime before they came.

Anyways, check it out totally a cool hidden spot. Bathrooms are clean and modern too!

Have you been here or do you have a similar place you like to take your kids?  Let us know in the comments below!