Meijo Park's "Kodomo no Hiroba" Works From Age Zero. I Went and Looked at the Fenced Area at 5 a.m.

Every photo in this post was taken on the same morning, inside a five-minute window starting at 5 a.m. The timestamps say August 1, 2024 — the morning right after Meijo Park's "Kodomo no Hiroba" (children's plaza) opened, which happens to be exactly two years ago today.

What's in the frame is playground equipment. Nothing else. Not one child. Because it was 5 a.m.

The upside is that I ended up with photos where you can actually see the whole layout. This plaza is genuinely well built for bringing a baby along, so I'm handing over the pictures with it.

Panorama of the whole children's plaza at Meijo Park: shade trees and benches, a red fire-engine-shaped play piece, and a colorful playground area spreading out behind

The plaza in one panorama. Play equipment back left, benches and a brick path on the right. That red fire engine in the middle is quietly popular.

Where "Kodomo no Hiroba" Actually Is

It's on the north side of Ofuke Pond — a relatively new plaza, announced as open by the park's official site in July 2024. The official pitch is that you can play while looking at Nagoya Castle.

We live in Kita Ward, so Meijo Park was already our home ground. But since this plaza appeared, the case for bringing a baby has gotten a lot stronger. The reason is the fence.

The Fenced Area, Built for Ages 0 to 2

One corner of the plaza is ringed off with a white fence. The sign says "SukusukuLand" (Sukusuku Land).

The fenced area for infants and toddlers: an orange mound, a sandbox, a shade pergola, and low swings

Inside the fence. Orange mound, sandbox, pergola for shade. The ground is cushioned rubber paving.

This is a product line called "Sukusuku Land" from the playground maker Uchida Kogyo, designed as a play space for children under three. Seeing it in person, that thinking has been turned into physical objects, one by one.

  • It's enclosed by a fence and gates: a kid who has just learned to walk will reach the ends of the earth in the three seconds you look away. Just having a boundary cuts parental wear-and-tear by an order of magnitude
  • Rubber paving underfoot: at the age where falling over is the job, this is a gift
  • The equipment is low: the slide comes up to about an adult's waist. The swings have low seats and are ringed with rope
  • A shade pergola over the sandbox: in summer, whether there's shade or not changes how long you last by a factor of three

Each piece of equipment has a round explanatory plate on it, saying things like "for children who have gotten good at running and jumping" or "playing together with adults and friends, communication…" — spelling out which stage of child the equipment is for and what it's meant to develop. I haven't often seen park equipment explained to this degree.

Strollers Can't Go In. But There's a Place to Put Them

The gate has a blue plate with a stroller crossed out. No strollers inside the fence.

The answer to "so where does my stuff go" turned out to be on the outside of the fence.

Blue signs at even intervals outside the fence, showing a P mark and a picture of a stroller, with the word "stroller" in Japanese

The "P + stroller" signs lining the outside of the fence. A polite way of saying: park it here.

The "P (stroller)" signs are spaced evenly along the fence. Since the fence is mesh, you can keep your bags in view while your kid plays inside. The layout supports the classic maneuver: release the older one into the enclosure, keep an eye on the baby's stroller through the fence.

A small detail — one of the gate panels also carried this notice: "In an emergency, please climb over this fence." The kind of thought that only an enclosed space requires.

The Fence Itself Is a Toy

This was the part that impressed me most. Green panels are set into sections of the fence.

"Which one is the same shape?" — a rabbit's face and a cat's face are drawn on it, with two black silhouettes on the right. Which one is the rabbit shape? That puzzle.

Kids waiting their turn. Younger siblings who aren't ready for the equipment yet. There will always be a child standing at the fence with nothing to do, and whoever designed this probably knew that.

Outside the Fence Is Big-Kid Territory

Step out through the gate and the equipment goes up a size.

A large play structure with a brown dome roof reading "Meijo Park", three slides in green, yellow and red, and blue stairs

The structure with the "Meijo Park" plate. Three slides side by side, and wide, gentle stairs.

The first one has three slides hanging off a brown, tree-like dome. The stairs are wide and shallow and the floor is green rubber paving. Exactly the right scale for repeating "climb up myself, come down myself" indefinitely.

The second one is clearly aimed at kids with stamina.

A large combination play structure: an orange tube slide, two long red slides, and a green frame decorated with white lily flowers

This one's the athletic bracket. An orange tube slide plus two long slides. The white lily decoration is the landmark.

A tube tunnel slide, two long straight slides, a climbing net and ladder. You can tell at a glance that its target age is different from the first structure's. The equipment has target-age markings on it, so check those before you put a little one on.

The Most Important Sign in Meijo Park in Summer

On that long slide, in white lettering, it said this:

"CAUTION: HOT" (kouon chui)

The side of a long red slide, with "CAUTION: HOT" written on it in white hiragana

Not a warning notice taped on — it's written into the slide itself.

Not a piece of paper, but printed straight onto the equipment: you sense a certain seriousness there. And in fact, once a Nagoya summer morning passes 10 o'clock, neither metal nor plastic is a temperature you can touch. The park's own announcements mention staying hydrated and watching for heatstroke, too.

にじパパTRANSMISSION

First park I've been to where the slide itself says "caution: hot."

If you're going in summer, go at opening light. This isn't unique to Meijo Park, but the longer you look at what the equipment is made of, the more convinced you get. At 5 a.m., everything was still cool to the touch.

The Orange Netting Is Not Construction

Look closely at the photos and you'll see orange netting strung around the equipment.

A large play structure seen through orange net fencing, with lush green grass in the foreground

The orange net is protecting the turf. The equipment itself was perfectly usable at the time.

I saw it and nearly turned back thinking "still under construction," but the park's official announcement had the answer: all equipment is usable, and some areas are closed off to let the grass establish. It's netting to protect turf that's still growing in.

This photo is from August 2024, right after opening, so the netting is gone now. Moral: orange net does not equal closed plaza.

The full large play structure standing beyond a wide lawn, with lush grass in the foreground

Once the grass grew in, this whole foreground became picnic-blanket territory.

[My Verdict] You Can Bring a Baby and a Three-Year-Old at the Same Time

When your kids are far apart in age, an outing is usually a place where one of them has to put up with it. Aim at the older one and the baby is bored; aim at the baby and the older one announces that this is boring.

Meijo Park's Kodomo no Hiroba answers that problem with "split the area, put both in." Ages 0–2 inside the fence, big kids outside. They're close enough together that one parent's line of sight reaches both.

And it's free, with no reservation needed. Coming straight off a fight with the booking system at Komaki Children's Future Museum, the plain fact that you can just show up and walk in looks positively radiant.

The Takeaway

Meijo Park's "Kodomo no Hiroba" (north side of Ofuke Pond) consists of a fenced 0–2 area called Sukusuku Land plus two large play structures for bigger kids. No strollers inside the fence; there's parking for them outside instead. Rubber paving underfoot, shade over the sandbox. All of it free.

And the reason not a single child appears in any of these photos is that it was 5 a.m. It was, I will optimistically note, the perfect hour for photographing playground equipment in full.

Sources I Used

Note: these photos were taken early one morning in August 2024, just after the renewal. Equipment layout and turf restrictions can change, so check the park's official site for the latest before you head out.

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