How It Started
Hydrangea is read ajisai in Japanese. I first learned that pronunciation from the light novel There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless…
The original title is 「わたしが恋人になれるわけないじゃん、ムリムリ！（※ムリじゃなかった!?）」—exactly as long as light-novel stereotypes would have you expect (
Only four or five volumes were out at the time. After reading them all, my favorite character was Ajisai Sena. (Ajisai, my angel!)
The series was later adapted into an anime. The TV version became a big hit (I think?), the theatrical release was also well received, and commercially it seems to have done quite well. Personally, though, the TV production looked rather cheap. I watched one episode, found it a little awkward, and dropped it (
The book gave 「瀬名紫陽花」 the reading 「せな あじさい」. At the time I thought the kanji and their pronunciation seemed completely unrelated, leaving me with nothing to anchor them together in my memory.
After reading it a few more times, though, the name stuck. Such is the power of loving a character.
Incidentally,
characters whose lot in life is to suffer seem to have a special hold on me. The list includes, among others,Ms. Tsuyusweet angel Mahiru from Revue Starlight, and Gunjo-senpai from Ueina Botan, Yoeru Sugata wa Yuri no Hana (
╯ 乀
ヘ へ
′
﹀
Not bad at all.jpg
Emmm, I have wandered rather far off topic. None of the above has much to do with this trip (
What actually made me want to visit the Shimoda Park Hydrangea Festival was passing the park on my previous trip to Izu. A Google Maps review happened to mention that it holds a hydrangea festival in June.
Hm, that sounded promising. Onto the travel shortlist it went.
The Plan
As June approached, I started following the latest updates. This year brought a lot of rain, which was good for the hydrangeas—they would not wilt under the sun—but rather less friendly to anyone trying to plan a trip. Nobody wants both days of their weekend swallowed by endless clouds and rain.
For detailed bloom reports, the official Shimoda hydrangea bloom updates are useful.
Once June begins, they post every two or three days with an estimate of how far the flowers have opened, along with plenty of photos for reference.
We did not wait for peak bloom. As soon as a relatively dry weekend appeared, our group set off.
The Hydrangea Festival
Weekend traffic was a little congested, and we took a detour on top of that. By the time we reached the park, evening was already drawing near.
Cloudy skies.
Well, I would take it. At least it was not raining.
I tried to find the famous Xiaohongshu photo spot, failed, and settled for passing this one off as good enough.
The sun suddenly came out for a few brief minutes. Rapid-fire shutter time.
And the magic hour vanished.
Plenty of flowers, hardly any people, and lovely scenery. I suspect the experience is much better than over in Kamakura (
The Log Cabin Guesthouse
We stayed overnight at a guesthouse. Unlike an ordinary cabin built from planks, this place had been assembled directly from whole, unprocessed logs. Interesting.
The downside: the friends staying downstairs said the moldy smell kept them awake all night (
A few details.
There was a barbecue area beside the house. Our group launched into a great flurry of activity, despite the fact that not one of us actually knew how to grill.
Faithful to the principle that overcooked meat beats raw meat, we successfully dined on charcoal grilled over charcoal.
Night in the mountains was still a little frightening. Some unknown wild animal kept making footsteps in the woods.
We even acquired a ghost story: the people in the other car insisted they had locked it when they left, only to return for something later and find one of the doors wide open. (Hopefully they were deliberately trying to scare us…)
We told the host, but there was not much anyone could do. The property was hardly blanketed in security cameras, so the case remains unsolved.
Talking with the host, we learned that this whole stretch of mountain belonged to his family. They owned several cabins and even a campground nearby.
Proper landed gentry. I was envious.
It came with costs, though. Transport was inconvenient, for one thing. Then a recent typhoon had felled a great many trees. On the road to the guesthouse, one large trunk lay across the road overhead, held up entirely by power lines and leaving just enough space for cars to pass underneath.
The host said the power company had assured them that the cable was extremely strong and could support the tree without trouble. That made this a low-priority job: they would deal with other places first and come back once things quieted down…
Shirahama & Mount Omuro
We went to sleep under the shadow of the mysteriously opened car door. Fortunately, everyone survived the night.
The next day, we visited a few other sights.
Shirahama.
The beach lived up to its name with white sand, so much of it that it spilled onto the pedestrian path outside. Even the bus-stop sign was half buried.
Mount Omuro.
I still do not understand why it is famous. Is it just because it looks like matcha pudding? It feels like a small grassy hill to me (
Returning to Familiar Ground
The Shimoda Hydrangea Festival runs throughout June. Once July arrives, the flowers begin to fade and the festival ends.
By chance, I returned in mid-August. The original purpose of the trip was to see the Ito Fireworks Festival, but I happened to find two travel companions, so we made another circuit of Izu while we were there.
The fireworks came with all kinds of mishaps and left me with a few regrets. Perhaps the details will appear in another travelogue—
assuming I do not abandon that draft.
The hydrangeas that had been in full bloom two months earlier had withered into something almost shocking. The whole plant looked rusted through, even the leaves mottled with corrosion, as though they would crumble at a touch.
Unexpectedly, a few had escaped the devastation. In shaded hollows, for example, some buds remained.
There were even blue-green flowers still in the prime of life. Even a bloom in its prime needs a little green in its life, as the saying goes.
I had assumed that after two months there would not be a single flower left, yet a few had held on.
That was a surprise. Hydrangeas really do have a long season.
Epilogue
This should have been an ordinary travelogue about the Shimoda Park Hydrangea Festival. After I delayed it long enough—three months—it somehow acquired an echo of its own (
And it is not alone. I had meant to write “Day 2: A Trip to Chichibu” after Golden Week this year, but before I even created the folder, a second visit came along. Now I can merge both trips into one post. What a delight (
Conclusive proof that some tasks, if postponed long enough, will disappear merge themselves.
Anyway, that is the story. After a four-month silence on the blog, There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Diligently Clear My Backlog! Unless… is now officially serialized.
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