To me, Kato Farm in Hidaka is a farm for the foodies, rather than the kiddies! It is a dairy farm that is quite small and, frankly, quite lackluster. But there is a reason their produce has won numerous awards over the years. They produce and sell premium milk andRead More →
The Hanasaki Summer Pools, aka water or aqua park, are as family and child friendly as the park they are in: Kazo Hanasaki Park. Hanasaki Aqua park is one of the three remaining prefectural pools. Unfortunately, the main Saitama Prefectural Pool in Ageo closed permanently in 2021. The pools inRead More →
Kawagoe Aquatic / Aqua Park aka Kawagoe Suijo Kouen, or Kawagoe Water Park, is one of the bigger and most popular summer pools in Saitama. And now that several pools have closed permanently, it is one of the few public pools left. Like all the other seasonal pools, it normallyRead More →
Ten (artificial) water play areas that are currently operating in Saitama in May 2022. The weather has really started to warm up this week. And its only going to get hotter! Thankfully, this year there is a better selection of water play areas than last year, when only a handfulRead More →
2022 Information for the annual wind chimes and glistening river at Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine. The Enmusubi Wind Chimes at Kawagoe Hikawa Shrine are generally displayed from around the first weekend of July to the first week in September. They follow the lesser known pinwheel event. I have visited the windRead 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 →
Tokigawa Town in the Hiki District of Saitama Prefecture is just over an hour from Tokyo. The town is famed for a rarer type of Iris; Iris Japonica or Butterfly flowers in English. However, there is also a small Iris garden in the town with the “hanashobu” variety of Iris:Read More →
June Saitama 2022~ the annual list of 15 things to do in June in Saitama! This post was adapted in 2021 for the “new normal”. As that is still the situation in 2022, the post reflects that. But the 2022 list has several new ideas, to keep the post freshRead More →
Ten rose gardens in Saitama Prefecture, commutable from Tokyo. The main period of bloom for roses in Saitama is the month of May. However, there are also autumn roses that bloom in October. In addition, there are winter roses too and even a few varieties that bloom out of theRead More →
The Kawajima Spring Festival is set to go ahead for the first time in three years, on this the 50th anniversary of Kawajima Town. However, in 2022 it will be a low key event, or at least not the full complement of previous years. Actually, the “Kawajima Spring Festival” isRead More →