Ohori Park

This guide to Ohori Park in Fukuoka traces how a stagnant old castle moat became a lakeside park, starting with a trade exposition that drew over a million and a half visitors in 1927. You'll hear how the city turned a mosquito-breeding eyesore into a real-estate scheme, dredging the water and selling off the new western shore as house plots to fund the work. It follows the officials who staged a blockbuster fair on the eastern shore before the concrete had even cured, and the landscaping, loosely modeled on Hangzhou's West Lake, that came after.