Hitachi Seaside Park: Spring's Nemophila and Tulips!

Yesterday I went to Hitachi Seaside Park, a national park in Ibaraki area which is averagely 2-3 hours away from Tokyo depends on which transport being used. It was outstandingly pretty I have to share it as soon as possible once I reached home!

Here's an opening photo for you guys, marked this post with this calendar.

Real time calendar is important for seasonal garden visit as we have to find the right time to see the fully bloomed flowers!

Special thanks to one friend who visited Japan last year and informed me about this park presence too; without him I can’t be seeing all of this magic right now. Since then I’ve been eye-ing this park and have been targeted to step my foot here in spring, where all the tulips and nemophila will be the star of the season. And I made it!

The trip from Tokyo itself was quite long and tiring; I used the train with the total of 5 hours round trip up and back. However, with only 410 yen for 1 adult entrance fee to the park, and all of the flowers that I saw (plus another wishlist crossed), it was very, very, worth it.  

The park itself was so big it kinda took all of my energy away. The full park size was around 2 km square; compared to Disneyland Tokyo which only around 0,45 km square; sure this one is gigantic. It took around 15 minutes itself from me to walk from the tulip spot to the nemophila hills spot. That’s why I spent the whole day with the limitation of only visiting all the famous spots too. I recommend people who wanted to explore every single spot of this park, better rent a cycling bike for 400 yen/3 hours, additional 50yen/30min, or using the park train trail which stops at several area throughout the garden. Didn't saw the cost though, will just leave all the details to their website here. It's in english, please kindly check as they have flower calendar too there!

I took my first step to this park via West Gate and directly greeted with a massive middle stage and a very big lake in the middle of the entrance gate.

Looked at how massive this was I instantly have a rough calculation of how tired I will be later and how far I have to walked away from one place to one place today.

Didn’t want to waste my time here on crazy thoughts, I walked directly to the Tamago no Mori (translated as “The Forest of the Egg”) area on the right side beside the west gate to see the first star of the season, tulips. Yaaay.

Greeted by them, all of my worry turned to smile and ready-to-take-photos stance in one second. Carpets of tulips, everywhere.

The white one were my favorite! Too bad it was located in the middle of the spot.

The flowers were so beautifully arranged creating one whole balanced contrast; not to mention that they put every name of the tulips type near the arrangement too. I never knew that there were so many kind of tulips before!

Reached the main spot of the tulips, the windmill!

Can see the contrast from the nearby hill too.

What mind-blown me was how can so many people were there with zero trash to be seen. So clean yet so unbelievable. Try this in Indonesia huh we’ll see.

Anyway, have cleared half of my phone battery and satisfied with all the photos of the tulips, say and see no more, took fast steps to the main star of the season to see the nemophila located on the spot called as Miharashi no Oka (Viewing Hill), 15 minutes walk away from the tulip spot. 

Once I reached there, my thoughts once again were stunned by the view. The 4,5 million of nemophila (baby blue eyes flower) had painted the hill blue all over. Well, at least until mid May. From here, taking pictures seems like the best thing to do. 

Painstakingly pretty and keep mumbling why they didn't have this in Tokyo..

Somewhat the hills become one with the sky. Thanks for the clear weather too today everything combined so perfectly.

Several last photos of the nemophila hill seen from several angles:

Aaand, done. I hope pictures speaks more than words as I didn't know how can I describe its charm anymore via sentences.

Finished with the nemophila, I visited several spots too that either once had became the main spot of the season in March or not yet bloomed such as herb garden on the other side of the park. This one below is located in the Suisen Garden, consist of narcissus flowers and several other specimen combined. Although some of them are starting to wither, the beauty still shows.

Didn't took a lot of photos anymore after the narcissus spot as the other spots of the garden rarely has any full-bloom flowers this season. And maybe I can say roughly that the narcissus marked the end of my photo session and spot hunting for the day. Spend the rest of my time just to wander around the rest of the park area which is indeed quite dull if it were not on the right season.

Out of topic but bought this pretty ice cream during the walk. It was as good as it looks!

I have to say even until the end, I’m impressed most by the nemophila hill so far; a view that can’t be seen anywhere in Japan except here. And I make a stupid conclusion (but I think its quite true) that any flowers that were beautifully arranged, bloom at the same time at a massive amount of numbers were not good for the faint hearted people, hahaha. 

On the other hand, for additional info too, the hill spot always offer the best seasonal flowers and plants the whole year. For example starting mid June there will be all the 30.000 Kochias (summer cypress) which will fill the hill with refreshing green color and it will turn all red when autumn come. Too bad I won’t be here anymore next autumn; have to try my luck some other time but definitely not this year.

The key point for a garden visit is the best timing, and this year, all of my work schedule, weather condition and the timing were all perfect; thanks for not betraying me, world.

And then, one last mandatory photos so that all of you believe that I didn't took all this photos just from the internet (LOL)

And that's it.

Sorry for the long post, thank you for reading it until the end, and see you again on the next one!!

Two Days Itinerary in Macau (part 2)

Sorry for postponed update! So here we go!

On the second day in Macau, I spent my day walked through all the famous world heritage spots in Macau Island area. While everyone on the net recommend the route to be started from Senado Square to the lower area, I started my route backwards; from down below (A Ma Temple) to upper area which is the Guia Lighthouse.

The exact route that I’ve walked in Macau Heritage Walk plan was (in order): 

• A-Ma Temple
• Moorish Barracks 
• Lilau Square
• St. Lawrence’s Church
• Dom Pedro Theatre, St Augustine’s Church, St Joseph’s Seminary and Church, Sir Robert Ho Tung Library (they are on the same area)
• Senado Square, Leal Senado Building, Holy House of Mercy (all same area too) 
• St. Dominic’s Church
• The Cathedral 
• Mount Fortress
• Ruin’s of St. Paul  
• St. Anthony’s Church 
• Guia Lighthouse

Since I stayed in the middle of Taipa Island and I’m very lazy to search for the bus route to my first destination (actually they have bus with the route that I wanted, but again, blame the construction sites everywhere the bus stop are nowhere to be seen!) I used taxi and it cost me around 50HKD from my hotel to A-Ma Temple.

I won’t talk that much about the history behind all the sites (as it was TOO MUCH to be told), I will just focus on each place that I have visited and what’s they look like.

First one is A-Ma temple; the one of the oldest Taoist temple in Macau that dedicated to Matsu, Goddess of Seafarers.

From A-Ma temple, everything just literally GO STRAIGHT to Senado Square, which is my temporary main aim from the temple.

Once I found a path like this on the side of A-Ma temple,

I just walked straight from there and the next building that I found was Moorish Barracks; being built to accommodate Indian regiments that were being dispatched from Goa, India. Can go enter the building but restricted only to the lobby area.

Walk a little bit more further from Moorish Barracks I found the Lilau Square.

Just near the Lilau Square, is the St Lawrence’s Cathedral which built before 1580 making it one of the oldest churches of Macao. The interior was beautiful, and the garden area was so peaceful too.

Finish with admiring every single thing there, walked again until I found the next big area where Dom Pedro Theatre, St Augustine’s Church, St Joseph’s Seminary and Church, and Sir Robert Ho Tung Library gather together.

The theatre was a little bit small but still can feel its glory presence.

Next to the theatre building is directly the St Augustine’s Church,

and Sir Robert Ho Tung Library.

I didn’t literally visit the St. Joseph’s Seminary and Church as it forbids me to enter from the back door there (see photo above) and require me to go outside the area and turn around on the back to enter the church via main entrance(which is quite troublesome). So I skipped that and continue walked straight from there until I found Senado Square, finally.

Leal Building is near the area too so I entered the place real quick before stepped in to the Senado Area.

Across the street was the Senado Square, which is, too bad for me, in their very awful state in my opinion as so many Chinese new year’s decoration were present at that time which somewhat annoys me THAT bad. I want the plain Senado Square!! Seriously.

Disaster.

Holy House of Mercy. Let’s skip this quick.

Walked to the end of the Senado Square area, reached the St. Dominic’s Church.

Actually, from here, everything was kind of in the same area and near to each other, and there were so many markings that lead you to several next historical places whichever would you like visit first.

I chose to visit the Cathedral first; took photo from the yard area and directly in front of the building itself.

I rest a bit there as I feel that wow, the whole trip from A-Ma Temple to this point was quite exhausting. And it was a right decision after all; because my next decision was Mount Fortress as the next target and HOLY guacamole, the road to the top was very steep and had quite a cardio back there!

Reached the top! Too bad it was foggy the whole week so the vision range was not very good. However I can see the Guia Lighthouse from here!

Anyhow, the trip from there and on was quite relaxed. Just follow the downward stairs from Mount Fortress lead me directly to the Ruin of St Paul; the main tourist spot at Macau.

It was so crowded and was quite a challenge to take a clean shot. Here was mine (with consideration to cut the below part as to avoid people’s head). Not so bad.

From there just take a little bit walk to the St. Anthony’s Church before leaving for Guia Fortress.

To go to the Guia Fortress, I use bus directly from the bus stop super near the church, and stop at Le Jardins du Flora. I’m very sorry that I forgot which bus number that I took; it was the wrong bus after all.

I thought the bus I took will take me directly to the station itself but instead they stopped at the main terminal in the middle of the route thus I have to change bus and pay again for the rest of the route.

Once I arrived, I just walked right to the cable car station spot, bought the ticket and directly went to the top of the hill. Reached the top, it took me around 15 minute more walk to reach the lighthouse.

It was not crowded at all and wish If I had more time to spent, I can spend the whole day dozing off there, maybe.

The lighthouse itself was quite fascinating although there’s not much to be seen for overall too. It will be much more perfect if the sky is clear and the whole scenery can be seen.

Thus Guia Lighthouse marked the finish point of my whole historical trip. From there I catch the bus back to City of Dreams to watch the House of the Dancing Water show which quite breathtaking too.

For overall, the trip from A-ma Temple to Guia Lighthouse took me from 10.00 to 17.00 on one day; including around 30 minutes lunch stop and 30 minutes lost around Senado Area to find one recommended restaurant which I finally couldn’t find at all. Considering that I went alone and my frequency to take photos and maybe selfies were not that time-consuming, 7 hours were just okay for me.

My opinion is that if you go in group and wanted to do a more relaxed time to enjoy every spot, 2 days will be perfect. 1 day is a little bit tight or so I think. But feel free to try on one day (and feel the burn on your feet!) as I feel that it was not that impossible to do too.

As a conclusion, It was a very, very fulfilling trip as I'm a very outdoor person, I haven't feel such in a better mood the whole day; as I spent mostly my days indoor on my work.

I can't wait to have this kind of trip again some other time. Gotta plan some more holiday to do!

See you on the next post!