belleelene

Japan expert, Hiking aficionado, Bad humorist.

Shibazakura: Mt Fuji’s flowering carpet

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Let’s imagine that you just got to Japan in May and all the cherry blossoms are gone by now, swept by the spring rains. What can you do to add a bit of pink in your life? If you are around Tokyo, you still have time to visit Mt Fuji’s shiba-zakura.

The Fuji shibazakura Festival (富士芝桜まつり) is a yearly event taking place in the vicinity of Mt Fuji in Yamanashi prefecture every late April to late May. The shiba-zakura are not trees, but bushes, technically pink moss phlox, which covers the land like a colorful carpet. You can find them at a large park near lake Motosu, one of the Fuji Five Lakes, at the Fuji Motosuko Resort. There are around 800,000 stalks of shibazakura in various colors, including pink, white, and purple. The highlight of the park is the view of the snow capped Mt Fuji in the backdrop.

There is even a miniature Mt Fuji made of multi-colored shibazakura, trying to imitate the real one. The main activities in the park include taking a myriad of pictures in front of the pink backdrop and enjoying local food and drinks at the many open air stalls. For some reason, there’s also a thematic exhibition and souvenirs of Peter Rabbit (the English children’s book character).

The shibazakura festival unfortunately coincides with the Japanese Golden Week (a streak of back-to-back national holidays), which means large crowds and unending traffic. Ideally, you should avoid the Golden Week days altogether. A (not so successful) alternative to avoid the traffic is to park your vehicle at the nearby Fujigane park (富士ケ嶺公園) as we did, and walk the 3km distance to the park under the scorching sun. Not one of my best ideas, but it saved us around two hours of being stuck in the traffic.

Fujigane Park

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