Atagawa Tropical & Alligator Garden is a popular tourist attraction in hot springs paradise Atagawa. It utilises the heat generated by hot springs to maintain several tropical greenhouse as well as alligator rearing facilities.

Even though Atagawa is a wonderful hot springs resort, there isn’t much else to do here. Therefore, this garden is a side trip for those who visit for a hot spring bath.

This “garden” can get a little confusing for visitors as there are actually three gardens in total. There are two main gardens, “Alligator Garden” and “Botanical Garden”, as well as one branch garden.

I went to the botanical garden first. This was the first scene that greeted me as I entered the first greenhouse. Throughout all eight greenhouses, there were explanations for the various plants here to keep visitors entertained. I quite enjoyed them.

There were many tropical plants which I had seen plenty of back in my home country but not in Japan.

Greenhouse no. 7 had the most beautiful flowers of them all, the water lilies. The photos were beautiful but I had to use a pretty long lens to zoom far enough; you wouldn’t be able to see them upclose otherwise.

From afar, they looked like this.

It took quite a while to look through all eight greenhouses, and that was a big plus in my book. I love looking at plants, and 90 minutes of plants-viewing was really value for money in my opinion.

Next was the alligator garden. It was a very short walk away from the botanical garden.

Even though this was supposed to be the main attraction, I didn’t find it as good as the botanical garden. There were indeed a lot of alligators, but they were incredibly hard to see. Some of them were in tanks, and most were in tiny pools surrounded by tall fences that made it incredibly hard to see them. It was done that way to ensure visitors’ safety, but still…

There were some trivial quizzes that were done rather… half-heartedly.

The mascot of the garden. A banana alligator.

The skeleton of a huge extinct species of crocodylian, Toyotamaphimeia. Very impressive.

Last but not least, the branch garden. This garden required a short bus ride to reach. The bus was stationed at the entrance of the alligator garden and would depart the moment you board if there were not many visitors on that day.

More beautiful flowers/plants.

There was this room with various interesting tidbits. One such tidbit was that the branch garden was one of the filming locations of Abe Hiroshi’s film “Thermae Romae”. Another was regarding the garden’s appearance in manga. There was even… One Piece.

One piece and the banana alligator. Who would have thought?

Chapter 173 of One Piece, “Banana alligator”. A close-up of the pages.

There were these large display cases of preserved tropical fruits with explanation texts beside them.

Next, bananas! Another main attraction of the garden. For your information, even though it was called “Atagawa Tropical & Alligator Garden” in English, the place was called “Bananawanien” in Japanese, which meant “banana alligator garden”. It was a mystery to me why they left the bananas to the branch garden, but I suppose they must have had good reasons to do so.

The bananas here were cultivated to be used in the garden’s restaurants. Self-sufficient eh!

Very informative explanation of the various stages of banana cultivation.

Lastly, we have the other main attraction of the branch garden, lesser pandas. Incredibly cute and incredibly fidgety. They just wouldn’t stop moving.

And that concludes the report! A very long report for a very content-packed garden. I spent close to three hours in total for the three gardens, and I must say I quite liked it. The alligator garden only lasted me about 30 minutes, mainly because I couldn’t see the alligators properly. For those going to Atagawa for a hot spring day trip, do drop by this garden. Can’t soak in a bath all day long, right?

By Desheng.

Information

*Please check for the latest information before visiting.
* This article was written by a trainee from overseas. Please note that there might be spelling and grammar mistakes.