Information for the 2023 Kuki Shobu Poppy Festival, which is on for the first time since 2019.
Kuki Shobu Poppy Festival
The Poppy Festival is on annually in May in the Shobu area of Kuki City. However, it was not on at all during the pandemic. Moreover, like Kinchakuda and Yono Park, Kuki city took drastic action during the first year of the pandemic and actually mowed all the poppies down to prevent people from visiting.
Kuki City has actually had very few events even this year, so I assumed (wrongly) that they wouldn’t have the poppy festival. It was a nice surprise to see a post about the poppies in Saitama Newspaper yesterday. Although the festival has already started, it is a long running event that is on until May 31st. It is a flower festival, so “festival” mainly indicates the period of bloom and when there will be volunteer staff at the site.
Poppy picking
The staff have a booth in the field where you can ask about the picking area, should you choose to pick some flowers. They usually have a small section, that changes daily, where you can pick a couple of flowers. During the festival you can only pick five flowers. After the festival is over there is no restriction on where or how many poppies you pick.
Information
Event: Shobu Poppy Festival 菖蒲地区ポピーまつり
Date: Saturday May 6th to Wednesday May 31st 2023.
Time: 10 am to 4 pm.
Cost: free and free parking.
Venue: Shobu Poppy Field, 菖蒲ポピー畑、 1152-3 Shobu, Shobu-cho, Kuki, Saitama 346-0106. View on Google Maps.
Access
There is a bus from Okegawa Station that goes relatively near. The bus bound for Mallage Shobu Taki no Court South entrance stops at JA Agri Hall Kuki, which is about a 10 minute walk from the poppy field. By car its about a 15 minute drive from the Shiraoka Shobu Interchange of the Ken-o expressway.
Official web page on the Kuki City Website.
A blog post in Japanese I found online with lots of photos. (I have no affiliation to this site)
Editor’s note: this event was temporarily off the website during the pandemic. It was republished on May 11th 2023.