Following our brunch date at the 202 in Notting Hill (blog post in the food section), we walked to Holland Park, specifically in search of Kyoto Gardens. What I imagined to be a quick and casual walk to the park basically turned into an unexpected gym session. The weather last week Saturday was moody to say the least I left my house when it was raining which is why I didn’t take any camera gear with me and ended up taking pictures on my phone instead (iPhone 6s). When we finished brunch, the sun randomly decided to show up. Bearing in mind that due to the unpredictability of British weather I was wearing a thick jacket, walking from the café to the park was not an easy ride, not to mention the steep hills and long walkway we had to walk through to reach our destination.
Finally, after walking along the endless but very pretty walkway we reached the park and straight away I regretted leaving my camera at home (although I blame British weather for that). The park was bustling with people and pets. Only a few minutes after entering the park, we say people setting up for a wedding which I assume was to take place later that evening, there were people going for a run, kids playing football, tourists and couples like ourselves out for a stroll. The one thing that I did take particular notice of was the sheer amount of Pokémon players out and about.
About 30 minutes after arriving at the park, we made it to Kyoto Gardens. I’d seen pictures of the gardens on Instagram and Google and really wanted to go because it looked so photogenic. The gardens are as beautiful in real life as they are depicted on social media. Because it was such a beautiful day, the garden was extremely busy. The one misconception of social media pictures is that the garden appears much bigger than it actually is – but that’s not a big deal. We walked from one end of the garden along the stone path to catch sight of a peacock that was the centre of attention with its blue and green feathers to the other which was a beautiful large fish pond with a waterfall where people were taking selfie after selfie and parents were making their kids pose for memorable summer photographs. I also wanted to picture on the walkway of the fish pond but found it was too crowded and people were impatient so decided against it. Crossing the small bridge to the other side of the garden, there was an empty bench and we seized the opportunity to rest for a while before continuing our walk. Whilst sitting on the bench, we saw another peacock approach and were happy to see two of them as the second one was literally within hands reach of me. What didn’t excite me was the number of Pokémon players out and about. I have nothing against the players or the game because the one advantage of the game is it does get people out and about. The only disadvantage of the game is that it doesn’t get people (from what I’ve noticed) to enjoy the views of the places they go to find the Pokémon. So many young children were just glued to their phones playing the game that they didn’t look up to see the birds in the park or garden, they didn’t even stop at the pond bridge to see the fishes or take a picture, rather they stopped to check if there were any Pokémon’s to catch there. Funnily enough, when we finally got up to leave the garden, there was a notice on the entrance of Kyoto Gardens specifically telling Pokémon players not to play the game in the gardens or step over boundaries laid out in parts of the gardens to catch Pokémon’s which I found hilarious.
Our visit to Holland Park and Kyoto Gardens was thoroughly enjoyable; we laughed and talked about the silliest of things, we enjoyed seeing peacocks and fish and taking a few selfies (not by the pond). Definitely recommend that whilst the sun is out in London, Holland Park makes for a fun day out for anyone and there are lots of places to eat only a short walk away – particularly in Notting Hill.
Adventures of a Hobbit 