Location Taken: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Time Taken: June 2010
There’s a lovely garden in Idaho Falls, Idaho. It’s located right next to the falls, so it’s fairly easy to find. And since it’s by the falls, one section of it is full of lovely small waterfalls split off from the main one, dancing through the rocks exposed by the water.
It’s also got some lovely Asian-style statuary scattered through that part of the park. I suppose thematically it makes sense; Asian gardens frequently have more water and rock decoration than most western gardens do. Still, at first thought, “Asian” and “Idaho” just don’t go together. I mean, just think about it. A land known for potatoes, that most prosaic of American foods, and the land considered the most exotic to most Americans. Well, at least to the Americans in my area, the East Coast. I saw enough teriyaki places and sushi stores in Seattle that Asian might be normal to people there.
But as a sign explained, it’s because Idaho Falls is a Sister City to a city in Japan. The town of Tōkai, along the south-eastern coastline of the main island.
Sister cities are relationships set up between two cities in very different cultures to form an increased knowledge of the other culture in each place. Events will be held, mutual tourism is encouraged, that sort of thing. Sometimes there’s little connection between the two cities, but more often they’ll have something in common.
I mean, the first American sister city was Toledo, Ohio, sistered with Toledo, Spain. There’s also Boring and Dull sister cities. Make that Boring, Oregon, and Dull, Scotland.
At first glance, there’s no obvious reason Idaho Falls and Tōkai are sistered, until you delve into the history of both towns. Both have nuclear research facilities nearby, and both have had nuclear accidents in the past. Idaho Falls’ accident was in 1961, and was the only fatal nuclear reactor accident in the US, with three deaths. Tōkai had its accident in 1999, and two of the three affected technicians died within a year. Mind you, the accidents were quite different (explosion due to improperly removed control rod versus a blue flash event caused by adding too much uranium to a chemical mix involved in reprocessing used nuclear material), but still, there’s certainly enough similarities there.
Certainly enough to make these two towns become sister cities, which leads to this rather pretty garden working oh so well.
