Shibazakura, Chichibu

After visiting Pat's company's shop, we continued our journey towards the Shibazakura.

We ended up having to hike up this hill to get there and here's Pat's Coca-cola CM~

smile~

On top of the hill were this statue, a resting area and a beautiful view of the area.

No tall buildings in sight

The only tree with red leaves

Pretty flowers~

I wonder what are these flowers called. I really like them. They're grouped together like a ball and they come in this pretty mix of pink and white.

Right before the shibazakura, there were some tulips too~

And finally!!!

We came all the way here for this! SHIBAZAKURA! PINK MOSS!

So pretty~

The entire hill were filled with these

The different coloured ones represent different varieties

There are even blue ones

This one here is had lots of green grass but it makes it looks really pretty.

I think that's Mt. Budoh in the background.

This is how you take a selfie with the flowers lol

Look at this view~ <3

Pat checking through the pictures taken earlier

Found a small shrine there and decided to go check it out.

And we found this cool little play area

Time to rest out feet

Yummy apply juice~ recommended by Pat

I guess we will always be a child at heart~

Really happy that I finally got to see the pink moss and I've been wanting to go since last year. Thanks Pat for taking this trip with me~

:D

Chichibu Shrine

First time at Chichibu station

View of Mount Bukoh from the station

The station looks nice and there is a newly opened onsen place right at the station.

Walked past Chihibu Shrine on the way to lunch.

We had lunch at this restaurant called イタリアンレストラン・バール SALVAGE [サルベージ].

Website: https://gurunavi.com/en/gf86100/rst/

They take pride in their organic produce.

We both ordered their lunch set which came with this beautiful appetizer.

We shared their daily special pasta.

And a margarita pizza.

 

Overall lunch was good and reasonably priced.

After that we walked back to Chichibu Shrine (秩父神社) where there had this huge flower display.

Long queue~

Pretty.....though I'm not sure what flower are they.

An interesting omikuji that I had to try even though I've told myself no more.

 

Look, it's totally empty!

We have to dip the paper into water before we can read our fortune.

Hugging one of the big tree trunk at the shrine for luck~

Arigatou Pat for this yummy freeze fried strawberry dipped in chocolate from her company. They were delicious~

Kawagoe Matsuri

I spotted this ad from WAttention one day stating that they were looking for participants in the Kawagoe Festival (Matsuri). I immediately applied because they provided the transport to Kawagoe from either Takadanobaba or Shinjuku station. Plus in this festival, we would get to pull the huge floats. 

It's definitely not something that I would easily get to experience. So I was really happy to get selected and I invited K to join me for this event.

We met up with the staff members and other participants at Takadanobaba station. There we received our staff pass and Seibu rail pass, which we could use for both our ride to and from Kawagoe.

While waiting for the other participants to arrive, I spotted this Claire's pop up stall and decided to check out some of their Halloween items.

Once at Kawagoe, we were led to the meet up spot before we were given 3 hours of free time to explore the area.

Once out of the station, we could already see many stalls!!!

And there were sooo many people on the streets~

No surprises there I guess as this is the largest festival in Kawagoe!

Besides food stalls, there were also many stages like these with live performances, as well as floats that were being pulled by different groups of people.

K and myself

This is probably the most traditional post office I've seen~

During our 3 hour free time, we went around the area in search of food

I bought a quail egg kushikatsu. Delicious~

There was also a ghost house there

I also tried the pork yakiniku. While it was expensive, it was good~

The streets there are closed off to cars for the floats and the food stalls.

It's just crazy because there were so many floats on display and at the same time, there were many people on the streets!

Every where you look, there's something going on

Here, you can see a Tengu resting

After that, we all grouped together again to collect our Happi coat~

We're all getting ready to pull the Kawagoe-shi float

A new friend that we met there who's from Canada

This is the Kawagoe-shi float that we had to pull~

All the floats that were on display at this festival are all different and are represented by different cities.

All the participants from WAttention

In action~ :D

At night, the lanterns on the float lit up. An interesting thing I've noticed is that every time 2 float meet, they will have to stop and greet each other. 

A group picture with everyone

After the festival, we quickly left the area because it was extremely packed! There were more people at night that in the day. It was difficult to walk even because there were just too many people. Hence, it was hard to get food. 

We decided to take the train back to Tokyo before getting dinner.

We ended in Onyasai (しゃぶしゃぶ温野菜) because it was cold and we were hungry.....what better than an all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu~

Website: http://www.onyasai.com/

What a great day~ An amazing new experience and a great end to the day with delicious shabu -shabu.

If you do eat there, get their onyasai ice which is vanilla ice cream topped with syrup and kinako~!! Really good!