Escape to Kuju Flower Park (くじゅう花公園)'s vibrant fields and starlit camping in Japan’s Oita. An unforgettable floral adventure awaits!

Jonathan and I moved to New York in the mid-eighties, living on the West Side close to the San Remo towers shown in the image above. One reason we chose…

Japan’s Kuju Flower Park is going viral, garnering 5,000 likes on Instagram in 4 days, thanks to its rainbow flower fields that bloom all year round.

Nature is often manicured to do the most amazing things in Japan. The Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi Prefecture is no exception. Located a few hours north of Tokyo, it’s most famous for the wisteria flowers that come into bloom in late April. They appear in a variety of colors, with some of the oldest trees trellised into spectacular canopies and tunnels. Wisteria only have a short bloom once a year, so visitors flock to the park. To try and avoid the crowds, I chose a weekday and set out from my neighborhood at dawn when it was still eerily empty. After numerous transfers through trains full of teens balancing backpacks and views of schoolchildren wandering between rice fields, I reached the park in the early hours. People had gathered, but there was plenty of space and the silence was peaceful. The trees were gorgeous and rather overwhelming; they are unbelievably pretty in the gentle morning sunlight. The white flowers were a little past bloom, purple were at their peak and yellow were on their way. It’s hard to capture the beauty of the park on film, let alone the fragrance; but with the whole park flowering, a scent wafted through the air. …