Kinchakuda in spring: cherry blossoms, rapeseed (canola flowers) and purple flowers. In 2023 the spring festival is making a comeback! Kinchakuda needs little introduction. If you don’t know it by name, you’ll know it as the most famous place for red spider lilies in Japan. However, what you might notRead More →
Seasonal flowers at the Shimoyatsubayashi flower field where flower picking is allowed and free Flower picking Unlike in my home country, you can’t pick flowers in Japan unless you have permission to do so. Not even flowers growing on the side of the road. Like Singapore, Japan also frowns onRead More →
Do you recognize the featured image? This used to be the “iconic” cherry blossom and rapeseed photo for Saitama Prefecture. You couldn’t look up 埼玉県 and 桜と菜の花 (Saitama Prefecture and cherry blossoms with rapeseed) without pulling up pages and pages of this image. It was used in blog posts, brochures,Read More →
Saitama Sakura Watch 2021 Hi! Apologies in advance that is quite basic, but I want to make the information available asap. I am getting a LOT of direct messages with queries about Saitama Cherry Blossoms. Thank you so so much, it means a lot to me. However and very unfortunately,Read More →
Takao Sakura Park is, as the name implies, a cherry blossom park in Kitamoto City, Saitama Prefecture. It is also a popular spot for watching the sunset. Perched on the hill overlooking the Arakawa river, you can see as far as Mt Fuji on a clear day. Between February andRead More →
Photogenic Cherry blossom spot in Hatoyama Town: Oshamoji Yama Park Oshamoji Yama Park Oshamoji Yama Park is not the type of place you would go out of your way to visit. It is located in a very small park centered around a look out tower. It has no car parkRead More →
Iwadono Kannon is the most common name used for Shoboji temple in Higashimatsuyama. However, on Google maps its called Shōbōji and that is the name that has stuck with me. The legendary gingko tree at Shoboji is one of my personal favorite posts on this blog! But there is moreRead More →
A small but beautiful display of Kawazu zakura cherry blossoms in Ageo City Kawazu Zakura Ageo There are dozens of places to see kawazu zakura around the Kanto plain. But in Saitama as far as I know we don’t have that many large displays. The largest is possibly the 2.5Read More →
On the Kitamoto stretch of the former Kamakura Kaido, there are several shrines and temples. Each of them has something very interesting about them. And most of them are quite photogenic. Perhaps the best known of them is the Takao Hikawa Shrine. It is famous for having Japan’s largest “omikuji”.Read More →
Once again it paid to get lost! On my way home from Adomani Cafe March 4th 2021 I took the wrong turn. Thankfully I had a rough idea of where I was and when I took another turn to get back on the right track I came across some ofRead More →