Komu

Nishiokoppe is home to a fabulous "entertainment" center. One large building houses the Komu, Kamu, and IT (information technology) center. The Kamu is a wonderful forest-like playland. You can find pictures of it on the Nishiokoppe website. It is nearly all wooden, with a very high ceiling which is painted black. The walls are mirrored, and the whole area has fake trees all around. The overall effect is one of a magical sort of forest. Within this forest, there are wooden play toys, structures, a small play house (with no roof, which gives it an interesting feel), and a handful of video games. My favorite parts are the large play areas filled, not with the colorful plastic balls you find in the U.S., but with smaller wooden balls instead. Children are provided with several kinds of scooping and shoveling toys with which to play with the wooden balls. One photo shows Holt sliding down a wooden slide into a ball pit. It's simply fantastic.
Kamu 1
Kamu 2
Slide
Boys on a Double Scooter

The Komu is another wooden playground. Words really cannot do it justice. There are several rooms. One is the puzzle room, filled with wonderful wooden puzzles of all shapes and sizes. There is even one in the floor that is about 5 feet square. The largest room is the main playroom, the "wooden tree room". Here, there is an enourmous, intricate play structures with many hiding and climbing places. From the very top, you can slide down the beautiful wooden slide into a pit of wooden balls. The photos you see here are taken on another structure. In one shot, you can see a huge wooden "Trojan" horse that children can climb in and on. There are large and small riding toys, as well. Some are even big enough for adults to zoom around on, and beleive me, they do! The parents have just as much fun here as the kids! In the center of the room is a merry-go-round powered by two wooden bicyles. They are positioned across from one another on the merry-go-round, and through the magic of gears, anyone can pedal enough to make the whole thing go around. I think I really will have to go back and take more photos! Our boys both spent a total of about five hours here over a two-day period. They had not been for a few weeks and just couldn't get enough.

Tomorrow I'll try and post about the middle school culture festival, so stay tuned!