Plan for the day
The plan was to visit Fuji Shibazakura Park near Lake Motosu, another of the five famous lakes of Mount Fuji. In the afternoon we would visit Lake Motosu, Oshino Hakkai and Lake Yamanaka.
original route planned for the day
End of the day
Our visit to Fuji Shibazakura Park was cancelled on arrival at the entrance. A staff stationed outside the entrance held up picture posters of the actual flower situation in the park. So customers who still proceeded to buy its ¥500 entry tickets fully understood the “flowerless” condition of the park.
The photo showed that only 5% of the shibazakura flowers had bloomed so there was no point proceeding with the visit. Since we had the whole morning free we made a last minute decision to drive to Ashikaga Flower Park to view wisteria. It was a long two hours drive there. Again at Ashikaga Park only the pink and purple wisteria had bloomed but the white and yellow had not. After Ashikaga Flower Park it was another 2 hour drive back to our guesthouse. By then it was too late to visit the nearby to Oshino Hakkai again.
Ashikaga Flower Park
Ashikaga Flower Park was 2.5 hour (177km) away from Shibuzakura Park. It was very much out of the way, but after some careful consideration we decided that the visit would be worth the time, effort and expense. Ashikaga Flower Park was one of the best places to see wisteria in Japan and according to its website the pink and purple wisteria had bloomed.
Route to Ashikaga Flower Park
The entrance fee to the park was ¥1500 per person, WOW! So pricey. It would have been more worth if we could stay till the evening to see the lighted garden. Unfortunately the distance to our accommodation was too far so we planned to leave by about 4 pm.
We still managed to spent three hours exploring the park. Beside wisteria there were many other flowers. But wisteria remained our favourite.
Wall of purple wisteria
This was our second time Yat Thong and I visited Ashikaga Flower Park. In our previous visit we came slightly later during the season and were very lucky to see all the pink, purple, yellow and white wisteria were in bloomed. The yellow and white wisteria were at their best as for the pink and purple wisteria they had sort of shriveled but were still on their stalks At night when the entire garden was illuminated shriveled or not they all looked magnificent.
This round we were early in the season and the white and yellow wisteria flowers were still in their budding stage and many of pink and purple wisteria sprays had yet to reach their full length.
But for mum and Lin Ying who saw wisteria for the first time, this massive display of flowers was still very outstanding and gorgeous. It was amazing how one wisteria tree could hold so many flowers.
Wisteria in the wild would never had a chance to flourish so massively, it was only under the care of gardeners in this park that a wisteria tree and its long branches could be so carefully propped up, making the flowers display so magnificent.
Pink wisteria propped up by trellis
Flowers in the Ashikaga Flower Park
Wisteria Flowers up close
Lovely Pink and purple wisteria
More Pink and Purple wisteria
Pink Wisteria
Lunch & dinner
For late lunch cum early dinner we ate at a Yoshinoya outlet in Ashikaga city. The price for four meals was ¥2050 not very pricey and no seat charges.
Meals at Yoshinoya at Ashikaga
On the way back to GuestHouse Hatago Sakuraya we stopped by at a supermarket and bought several packs of cooked food and made full use of the guesthouse kitchen cum dining room to enjoy our very “inexpensive” dinner.
Dinner (with pre-pack cooked food) at our guest house