Information for the Cainz Super Mall, Kawajima Interchange, and its annual Rainbow Festival. The Rainbow Festival is a small local type mascot event, with the mascots from each of the Rainbow Cities of Saitama Prefecture. The Rainbow Cities are Kawajima, Kawagoe, Moroyama, Ogose, Sakado and Tsurugashima. More information about theRead More →
The International Fureai Fair is held around the east exit area of Urawa Station. It was cancelled in 2021 and in 2020 they just had an online event. For the real deal, there are lots of stalls in the area for the festival. Fureai has a meaning similar to ‘exchange’Read More →
In advance of the red spider lily (aka lycoris radiata, cluster amarilla, equinox flower, higanbana etc) season, a photo Friday post of red spider lilies along the Shingashi River. The spider lilies don’t bloom until September. All these photos are from between 2006 and 2022. Spider lilies Shingashi River TheRead More →
The John Deere Park is a work in progress, but it has huge potential. It is a “Satoyama” flower park in rural Hatoyama. A place unscathed by telephone or electrical wires, which is rare even in the Hiki District which is largely countryside. Initially, the ‘real’ name of the parkRead More →
Lalaport Fujimi is a large shopping center / mall with 293 shops including eateries, clothes shops, department stores, household stores, supermarket, niche &/or specialty shops and entertainment facilities. Entertainment facilities at Lalaport include such things as play areas and the Toho cinema. There are also two small playgrounds, a waterRead More →
A selection of 10 Strawberry Picking farms in the Northern area of Saitama, including Chichibu, for the 2022 strawberry picking season. Strawberry Picking Chichibu and Northern Saitama The Strawberry picking season was late to start this year, due to the pandemic. Many farms that normally open in winter opted toRead More →
Saitama Prefecture Day Information for Saitama Citizen’s Day or Prefecture Day or Saitama day, kenmin no hi 県民の日 in Japanese. Saitama Citizen’s day is on the 14th of November each year. Kenmin no Hi literally means citizen’s day, but when I first came to Japan and until very recently itRead More →
“Hisashiburi” as we say in Japan for long time no see! I will cut to the chase – Insaitama will be around for another year after all. And here’s why! A lot has happened in the last month since breaking the news that I was closing down the blog. FirstRead More →
I am sorry to say that after 13 rewarding years, its time to put Insaitama.com to bed. That is, I will not be renewing my self hosting website contract in September. I have learned so much about blogging, writing, search engine optimization and even some technical skills over the 13Read More →
Information for the State of Emergency in Saitama Prefecture, Summer 2021. On July 29th 2021 it was announced that a State of Emergency (SOE) will begin on Monday August 2nd in Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba. In addition, the current State of Emergencies in Tokyo and Okinawa will be extended toRead More →