A highlight of October in Saitama Prefecture are the famous Konosu fireworks display. Early in 2020, the organizers of the Konosu Fireworks announced that they were postponing the infamous Konosu Fireworks. However, there were no further updates until June 23rd 2021. At that time, they said that the fireworks wereRead More →
The Ina Summer Festival and fireworks is actually (currently) scheduled to go ahead in 2022 despite the pandemic. There have been many more summer festivals this year than the last two years combined, but most of them have been in cities rather than towns. It is lovely to see aRead More →
The “Benibana” Safflower Festival of Okegawa is coming back in 2022. Okegawa didn’t even grow the safflower in 2020, but in 2021 they did and even penciled in a date for the festival. But ultimately it was cancelled due to the pandemic. This year, 2022, they have even made theRead More →
Bara no Komichi is an atelier and garden cafe in Ageo City in central Saitama. Bara is the Japanese for rose and Komichi means pathway or small passage. As you might guess from the name, the showpiece of the garden is its roses. But the garden and cafe are openRead More →
Information for the Poppies and Nadeshiko flowers in May and the Cosmos in October at Konosu’s Cosmos Arena Fuikage. Cosmos Arena Fukiage On the flood lands of the Arakawa river, millions of flowers grow annually in front of the Cosmos Arena Fukiage. Cosmos Arena Fukiage is a municipal sports facilityRead More →
Information for Saitama’s largest rose garden at Ina Memorial Park and biannual rose festivals. The spring rose festival in Ina surprisingly went ahead in 2021 despite a stay at home directive. It was one of the few Rose festivals on in 2021. So no surprises that the festival will takeRead More →
Musenyama, also known as the KDDI Forest, is a greenery trust in Ina Town. There are approximately 100 large sized (roughly 10 meters tall) cherry blossom trees, all about 80 years old, creating a 200 meter tunnel of sakura. Currently, Inamachi are planning to go ahead with a cherry blossomRead More →
The Motoara River Cherry Blossom festival, also known as the Fukiage Cherry Blossom Festival, is another of Saitama’s well known locations for hanami (cherry blossom festival). Especially with locals. The Motoara River in Fukiage may not be in the top 100 spots to view cherry blossoms, but it is in theRead More →
There are at least three places you can currently see sunflowers this last week of September (2021) ~ start of October. In this post, I will introduce one of them. It is a tourist sunflower field with parking and facilities such as toilets. The other two are in Okegawa andRead More →
Sun Amenity Kitamoto Camp Field and outdoor activity center is ideal for an inexpensive camping experience. Just 500 yen for the night – one coin camping! Open all year round, but it is particularly scenic in spring with cherry blossoms and ‘hanadaikon’, a flowering plant similar to bluebells. Furthermore, theRead More →