My husband and I went to Ashikaga Flower Park this past weekend. We decided to go for our original anniversary: the day we started dating.
Since we got married this year, we’ll be moving our anniversary celebrations to August, but this commemorates six years together! And the flower park was a lovely destination to celebrate.
All across Japan, there are beautiful natural features, and I appreciate how many large, gorgeous parks there are in our vicinity. Ashikaga Flower Park is no exception.
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Exploring Ashikaga Flower park
The park is like a flower theme park. Aside from the pretty blooms, the park features several light-up structures that create a fun backdrop once the sun sets. It’s an incredibly popular destination for couples, kids, and the elderly- so just about everyone.
When you purchase your ticket at the gate, they give you a map of the park. And while we paid in cash, they also take credit card. Though the line seemed long, we had tickets in hand less than 10 minutes later.
The areas we spent the most time in were: The White Wisteria Tunnel, Wisteria Flower Story, and the Tree of Life.
The area near the Tree of Life had tons of gorgeous sage growing, and even hummingbird hawk-moths which I literally thought were hummingbirds until Ramon pointed out the antennae and proboscises!
Their Rose Garden of Light was one of my favorite areas. I love roses because we had a couple of bushes growing in our front yard when I was younger. They had lots of varietals, and they were beautiful and in bloom. I can’t wait to see it in the spring.
Amenities
There’s a food court, plenty of restrooms, and the park itself isn’t actually that large, so walking around and enjoying the sights is straightforward and fun. The entire park has been set-up for the Fall and Winter season with beautiful lights, and the whole park is a cute photo opportunity.
We had a large lunch, so we went with snacks from the foodcourt as our “dinner”. I got what’s essentially fried potato-on-a-stick, aka 芋フライ (imofurai), which is apparently a specialty of Sano city (佐野市). Ramón went with regular fries; both were extremely tasty – especially for foodcourt food. The fries were fluffy and hot, and the potato-on-a-stick was crunchy and topped with tonkatsu sauce. Yum – good job, Sano city.
They also had more than one stall selling other types of food, and even a full-blown restaurant for the truly famished. Not to mention plenty of vending machines with lots of options. Japan is a hangry-girl’s paradise.
They also had a considerable array of different flowers, cacti, and succulents in their gift shop, which I could barely restrain myself from buying. Seriously, they were all so cute and well-arranged. I’m obsessed with moon cacti – I already have one at home!
Illumination
Since it’s Fall, instead of voluptuously blooming florals, stunning Illumination (イルミネーション) becomes the star of the show at Ashikaga Flower Park. Seamlessly woven into the structures and flowers of the park, wisteria-shaped drop lights create fairytale-like ambiance. As the sun sets, the lights come alive, and golden hour sunbeams shine through.
I’m a complete sucker for light shows – I love TeamLab, and if I could find a James Turrell exhibition near me, I’d be there in a heartbeat.
There’s nothing more quintessential to the Fall and Winter season in Japan than Illumination, at least in my mind. It feels very Christmas-y to me, and I always loved looking at Christmas lights as a kid.
The Illumination at Ashikaga Flower Park gave me my first real taste of Illumination this season, and I love the way the lights pulse and move as it gets dark.
Access
Ashikaga Flower Park’s website has lots of great information, including the ticket price, which fluctuates based on the date and time; when we visited, it was ¥1300 (~$9) per adult for the afternoon session.
Flowering status of the blooms, access, and other information is all included on the website as well. However, it is in Japanese so I recommend using Google Chrome’s translation feature.
From Tokyo, Ashikaga Flower Park is about an hour and a half drive, while transit averages about two and a half hours. They even have their very own station: Ashikaga Flower Park station, accessible by the JR Ryomo line.
If coming by car, I’d highly recommend arriving around 4:30pm (just in time to see the sunset) because by 7:00pm it was incredibly busy, and the parking lot was full to the brim. It was like parking on the 4th of July.
There were also a few hotels in the area for those looking to stay longer in Tochigi prefecture. And if you’re looking for more to do in Tochigi, check out my top 5 Things to do in Nikko too!
4 responses
Very well written, and great photos. Terrific job Kat.
Thanks, John! It was fun to write, glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Absolutely love this piece! Fantastic blog!
Thanks Lilia! <3