Events at and information for Kitamoto General Park

The Kitamoto General Park, or Kitamoto Sogo Koen in Japanese, is a neighborhood park with lots of sporting facilities for the local community to use. However, people from outside the city can also book and pay to use facilities. In fact, it is one of the parks on offer for pre-training sessions during the Olympics. Due to the various sporting amenities in the park and facilities for families, including a nice playground and water play area, the park is well used. Moreover, it hosts some great events during the year.

Kitamoto General Park

The playground is located on the west side of the park, close to the main car park. It has one of those spider web type climbing frames. (Pictured in the first photo in the gallery). These type of climbing frames are abundant in my home country, but in Saitama you can only find them in a handful of places. One of those places is Higashimatsuyama Agriculture Park. And Shinrin Park also has a really large one.

The lake in the park has a picturesque red boardwalk. Fishing is permitted on the lake and you will often see people fishing there. There are a few cherry blossom trees in the park. There is also potted displays of flowers, but the park isn’t particularly known for its flowers. In Autumn, the maples trees turn shades of red.

Events at Kitamoto General Park

Kitamoto Yosakoi 2022

For the first time in three years, Kitamoto will have its Yosakoi – a type of traditional Japanese dance with flags – in 2022. This will be the 15th occurrence of the festival. Thirty seven different yosakoi dance troupes will participate. The opening ceremony is at 9.40 am and the performances will start from 10 am. There is no entrance fee to the event.

Chrysanthemum festival 2022

The flower of Kitamoto City is the chrysanthemum. So no surprise that they have a chrysanthemum festival each year in November. It is held at the Kitamoto General park. The festival was completely canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic and downscaled in 2021. Many of the additional events that typically take place at the festival, such as live performances, are not scheduled for 2021.

Please wear a mask and maintain social distancing.

Winter Illumination 2022 / 2023

There is a nice little night illumination display in Kitamoto Sogo (General / Total) park every winter. It is just on for about five weeks each year. This year they will have some kitchen cars (food vans) in the park on four dates during the illumination period. They are Sunday December 4th, 18th, 25th and January 8th 2023. The kitchen cars are there from 10 am to 7 pm.

Another two events that are usually held at the park are the Tomato Festival in spring and the Tomato Curry Festival in Autumn (formerly in August).

Kitamoto City Outdoors

Kitamoto has a great selection of nature spots and parks. With children I particularly recommend the Kitamoto Children’s park. Its one of the best parks around for small children. For athletes and people wanting to use the sporting facilities at the park, the Prefectural Government has detailed information in English here. If you are looking for accommodation in Kitamoto there is a super cheap campsite that has some cabins that is worth checking out if you are on a budget.

Information

Access

Kitamoto General Park is about a 25 minute walk from the east exit of JR Kitamoto Station on the Takasaki line.

Free parking for around 200 cars.

This post was written in 2013. Due to issues when transferring the blog to a self hosting website back in 2015, this post (along with a handful of others) was actually unpublished for a few years. I republished it in 2021. However, with the exception of the chrysanthemum festival information, the content is the original 2013 post.