Rainy Season around Tokyo: Hydrangea Flowers
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July 2, 2014 - Rainy Season around Tokyo: Hydrangea Flowers
The rainy season in Japan can be a headache for travelers, whose limited time and wardrobe are often at odds with the sometimes copious amounts of rain that can fall in a day during June and July. Yet rainy season is also a very rewarding time to travel... if you don't mind getting a little wet!
One of the highlights of this time of year come in the form of beautiful hydrangea flowers, called "ajisai" in Japanese.
Although they can be found everywhere around Japan at this time, there are a few places around Tokyo that truly highlight the range of color and the beauty of these flowers. If you are traveling now, you will not regret seeking out them out!
Let's start with an area that is already popular with travelers: Ueno!
Ueno has many ajisai planted around the park, with a large hill of them behind the Kiyomizu Kannon Temple especially. Even if you are strapped for time, a quick walk around the park will still allow for many picture opportunities!
Ajisai get their various colors from the soil; more acidic means darker colors, while less acidity produces lighter colored blooms. Ajisai range from white to pink to blue to purple and all shades of these colors in between. Although I don't have a picture of them, near my house is a bush with the deepest purple flowers I've ever seen!
Ueno doesn't have an specific events related to ajisai, but is still a good, central location to see them.
Kunitachi's Yaho (Yabo) Tenmangu has a wonderful small-community feel along with its hydrangea festival, held every year from about mid-June into July. I especially like how the green roofs of the shrine buildings enhance the green of the trees!
This shrine is technically called Yabo, but everyone in the area pronunces it Yaho. It is a shrine constructed in honor of Sugawara no Michizane (now enshrined as the deity Tenjin, god of scholarship and learning), and is one of the three major shrines of his in Eastern Japan, along with Tokyo's Yushima Tenmangu (a popular plum blossom spot as usual with these shrines) and Kameido Tenjin (located in Koto Ward).
Students often go to Tenjin shrines to pray for luck in passing their entrance exams, but Yaho Tenmangu also has another interesting feature as well: it was the destination of Japan's first road trip by car in 1908, and the meeting site about the future of cars in Japan, and as such has a classic car festival December 7th every year. You can also buy car-related ema and charms for driving there as well.
Yaho Tenmangu can be reached pretty easily from Tokyo by taking the Chuo Line to Tachikawa, and transferring to the Nambu Line to Yaho Station. It is a short walk from there out the south entrance of the station. Alternately, from Kunitachi Station there is a bus that goes there as well.
For those interested in seeing Ajisai outside of the two spots mentioned here, there are many opportunities. The poster above details the famous hydrangea viewing from the Hakone Mountain Railroad line in Kanagawa, which has special trains and viewing hours for the lit up hydrangea through June and July. I'd love to ride this train, but tickets sell out fast!
Around Kamakura and Enoshima in Kanagawa there are many hydrangea blooming as well, including at the famous Meigetsuin in Kamakura.
Tokyo Summer Land is not just a waterpark, but a great place to view many flowers during their festival until July 11th.
Kyoto's Sanzen-in Temple in Ohara has a festival running until around July 13th.
And of course, many flower parks in each prefecture have ajisai. But really, they are not hard flowers to find this time of the year! For those currently in Japan, please enjoy these fun flowers!
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