Tsukuba is very much a science city, with Tsukuba Science City being a center for research and education. What sets Tsukuba apart from other town developments in Japan is the large scale and fast pace of its development into a place with high quality of scientific innovation.
Tsukuba is also the home of the JAXA Tsukuba space center, which we enjoyed a lot.
The owl (fukuro) is the official bird mascot of the city. You’ll find several owl sculptures placed in the Tsukuba central park (Chuo Koen), se below. It’s a bit similar to the owls which can be seen decorating the Ikebukuro station. (with the word play ike-fukuro).
Owls are often used as a lucky charm. The reason for this can be found in the Japanese name for OWL – FUKURO （フクロウ or 梟) – which can also be written with different KANJI CHARACTERS that give it a LUCKY significance. FUKURO can be written as 福来郎 （福: fuku, LUCK; 来: kuru, comes; 郎: ro, suffix for a boy’s name), meaning LUCK COMES, or as 不苦労 (不: fu, no; 苦労: kurou, hardship), meaning NO HARDSHIP OR SUFFERING.
This type of word play which can make the names of objects either auspicious, or inauspicious is called GORO AWASE (語呂合わせ), and in this way, owls have come to be one of the more popular motifs for ENGI MONO, or lucky charms.
A Lilly among the cherry blossoms 