The Otaki Ice festival, illuminated Misotsuchi Icicles in 2022 – One of the most famous, and beautiful, winter scenes of Saitama is at the Otaki Ice Festival – in the former Otaki village – in Chichibu. The Misotsuchi Icicles are the only naturally formed icicles of the three Great iciclesRead More →
Kinchakuda Red Spider Lily Festival 2021, Hidaka, Saitama Japan – They cancelled the 2020 festival on account of the Coronavirus outbreak. Moreover, on the 17th of September 2020 the city cut the spider lilies that had grown to prevent more people coming. It is too soon to tell what will happenRead More →
Fukaya Green Park Fukaya Green park is a small park beside the indoor pool and leisure center Aqua Paradise Patio. The park isn’t particularly big, but it has some beautiful cherry blossoms. Interestingly ANA describes it as a “vast park”, it makes me wonder did we accidentally miss a wholeRead More →
Kinchakuda in spring: cherry blossoms, rapeseed (canola flowers) and purple flowers 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 not know about Kinchakuda is that it is not justRead More →
Onouchi Hyakkei Icicles are one of three icicle winter spectacles of Chichibu. “Hyakkei” means hundred and the Saitama Prefectural Tourism website translates the icicles name as Onouchi Hundred Icicles. However, the icicles are most commonly referred to as the Romanized version of their Japanese name. But in 2021 Chichibu announcedRead More →
The Ashigakubo Icicles in 2021. The icicles are generally open to the public from the first week in January to the last week in February. In 2020 due to warmer than normal weather the icicles were severely effected and the event ended up starting late and ending early. However, theRead More →
Cluster Amaryllis / Higanbana / Red spider lilies at the Terasaka terraced Rice fields in Yokoze. In 2020 the Terasaka Terraced Rice fields are off limits to the public. Not only is the festival not on, they are cutting all the red spider lilies to deter people from visiting theRead More →
A village of Peach Blossoms “Hanamomo no Sato” nicknamed an earthly paradise. In the Ouchizawa area of Higashichichibu, Saitama Prefecture. An Earthly Paradise The village of peach blossoms Ouchizawa Hanamono no Sato is one of Saitama’s most stunning spring scenes. Rightly nicknamed as “an earthly paradise” the location is remarkablyRead More →
Chichibu Highland Ranch, also known as Sai No Kuni Fureai Farm, is a free prefectural farm on top of a 766 meter high mountain ridge in Higashichichibu village. Located on an old mountain route that connects Ogawa and Higashichichibu to the Chichibu District, the drive itself is both beautiful andRead More →
Toryu bridge (also called Toryumon) is over the Ara River (Arakawa) in the Mitsumine area of the former Otaki Village in Chichibu, Saitama. Toryu Bridge Toryu Bridge is a footbridge at the start of the “omotesando”, the sacred trail, to the famous Mitsumine Shrine. The hike from the bridge toRead More →