Japan 2017 Redux: Day 5 "Nikumaki revelation"
Day 5: 2017-05-02 Tuesday
We’re now well into the main part of Golden Week. Everyone’s off visiting tourist attractions on the busiest week of the year, so why not do as the Romans do and squeeze ourselves onto a train to somewhere nice?
Let’s go to Ashikaga Flower Park!
http://www.ashikaga.co.jp/english/index.html
Use Tomita station on JR Ryomo line https://www.ashikaga.co.jp/english/access.html
10.41 - 11.46 Ikebukuro - oyama
12.02 - 12.33 Oyama - tomita
— Google Keep note
Having checked the links to see if they’re not broken, I see that a year after I went, they actually opened a station at the Park itself, helpfully called Ashikaga Flower Park Station. Until then, users were directed to use Tomita Station, which is a 13 minute walk to the Park.
Local train to Tomita had doors you had to open yourself!
Even rural lines near Tokyo have better service than back home.
— My notebook
The big draw to Ashikaga Flower Park is the wisteria. Parts of it are covered in the stuff, like a sea of purple. It’s very beautiful.
I incude the photo above so you can get an idea of how packed some parts of the park can be, but rest assured that not all parts of the part were always this busy.
While the flowers were lovely, and I have lots of pictures to prove it, my notebook actually goes into more detail on the kind of food they had for sale.
Wisteria ice cream (soft serve) is surprisingly frozen, and not as soft. Also, the wisteria flavour is more of a hint than a flavour.
Nikumaki - rice ball on a stick covered in meat. What a revelation.
Deep fried potatoes - with special sauce. Also great.
Sticky miso manju - boy that sauce is sticky.
— My notebook
All in all, I’d heartily recommend Ashikaga Flower Park for a day out near Tokyo. It’s really big, has plenty to do, and has lots of nice festival-style food to eat.