Wanpaku Heaven

Just a brisk 5-minute walk east of Skytree is Wanpaku Heaven, an awesome park for the dreamers.

First glance you know this park is different. Completely shut off from the rest of the world with giant wooden walls and a huge wooden gate - it isn't a park, it's a fort! What a fort it is! Passing through the gates, you can see the inner wall is decked out with rope ladders, planks, bridges and more. The child inside me wanted to quickly ditch the kids and explore.

A surprise is laying around every corner with this playground. The list of everything I liked about it is too long to put here. But what really sets this playground apart from the rest, is the fact it is fully equipped with toys. You don't have to bring your own because they have bikes, tricycles, stilts, balls, jump rope and a wooden kitchen set with wooden cups and utensils to match. All of it free for the kids to play with. All they ask is to follow their 'take and put back' policy. They are strict with the 'put back' part of that policy, as it would seem some people have forgotten in the past.

Beyond that, there is a Tarzan rope, a hill with a tree, a tunnel under the hill, and an incredible view of Skytree. The only thing that I would have to complain about is, the lack of slides! There isn't even one slide! How could they forget arguably the best part of a playground?! Who knows, but they got everything else in spades.

Surprisingly, all the fort and all the toys aren't even the coolest part of the playground. Situated nicely in the corner of the park is an open woodworking workshop for kids. There aren't any teachers, and the kids are free to explore and encouraged to use their imaginations to create. There are about 2-3 helpers there that will guide you around and give you advice, but for the most parts, the kids/adults are free to rummage through their fully stocked woodwork shop.

All the wood and scraps are donated from local suppliers, and they have a lot of random doodads collected and neatly laid out.

Frankly, I didn't think I would be teaching Juno how to use a hammer or saw anytime soon, but no better time than at the fresh age of 3 years old. We were hammering nails into our designer table, sawing off wood chips and gluing feathers for an hour. Lastly, after the glue had dried in the sun, we got to bring this masterpiece home.

Juno's favorite The workshop was fun, and Juno definitely enjoyed hammering. But the one thing I couldn't get her away from was the tiny wooden kitchen.

With a microwave, sink, table and a large amount of dirt... kids were going crazy making and destroying mud pies, and dirty Onigiri. Pouring cups of dirt for each other before pouring those cups all over the table and floor. The best part was, every girl in there was dead serious about what they were doing.