Wako Jurin Park and the Wako Citizen Festival

The Wako Citizens’ Festival is an autumn festival, held annually in November. The main festival is normally on for two days around the middle of November, with smaller events in the lead up to it, but in 2022 there will be just one main day. There will, however, be smaller events for the proceeding week.

Wako Citizen’s Festival

The festival is held around the Wako City offices. The objective of the festival when it was first set up was to encourage Wako Citizens to increase their awareness of global understandings and multicultural coexistence. Source: was an English web page on Wako City website, which has been lost with the city’s website update. Ironically, despite the objective of the festival, there is very little information in English online. All I could find was two outdated articles from the English web pages of the city (which I had linked, but their links now go to an error page as the website has gone through a renewal during the pandemic).

The main 2022 Wako Citizen’s Festival is, as I said above, on for just one day which is Sunday November 13th. However, the official period is from Saturday November 5th. Unfortunately, (a recurring issue in 2022) information is very thin on the ground. They just say on the official web page that they will release information at a later date.

Before the pandemic the festival had Japanese dance and music performances. Also, there were mikoshi, portable shrine, processions. However, they were on the first day – the Saturday – of the festival. Seen as there is no Saturday event this year, it is possible there will be no mikoshi or traditional parades. Before the pandemic there were festival stalls and stage performances on both days. Usually the city mascot visited on the Sunday.

Wako Jurin Park

There used to be elements of the festival in Wako Jurin Park, which is very close to the Wako City Hall. Wako Jurin Park is a relatively large park (for the area its in), right beside another park – Oizumi Central Park – which is part of the Tokyo Metropolis! They are literally right across the road from each other (south end of the park). The street that divides them is known for its cherry blossoms in spring. There are also beautiful cherry blossoms in Wako Jurin Park.

The street on the North east of the park, Momote street, that leads to city hall, is known for its gingko in Autumn. You can also see some Autumn colors in the park, but it isn’t the best place for Autumn leaves. But if you are local to the area, it is a nice park to visit. There is a small playground in the park and in summer they have a wading river. There are stretches of lawn where you can picnic. In addition, the park has a barbecue area. And across the road in Oizumi Park there is a camping ground.

Like both Inariyama Park and Sai no Mori Park, Wako Jurin Park is a prefectural (not municipal) park and its official website is managed by Seibu. Botanen Park in Higashimatsuyama city is a municipal park, but it also has a website run by Seibu. Wako Jurin Park on Google Maps.

Information

Event: Wako Citizen’s Festival 和光市民祭り

Date: Sunday November 13th 2022

Time: 9.30 am to 3.30 pm

Cost: free (individual events may have charges)

Venue: in and around Wako City Hall, 1-5 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0192. View on Google Maps.

Access

The Wako festival can be accessed from Tobu Tojo and Metro line’s Wako Station. It is about a 15 minute walk from the station to the venue.

There is no car parking available for this festival and they strongly discourage people from coming by car.

For more events in Saitama please see the main event category or use the “this weekend in Saitama” web story to see what else is on each weekend. Each weekend the web story introduces a selection of 20 events and / or things to see or do in Saitama Prefecture:

The information was up to date and accurate to the best of my knowledge at the time of updating the information for 2022. The post was updated on October 21st 2022 and scheduled to republish on October 23rd 2022. Please do check the official website for the most up-to-date information.