Food van at cherry blossom festival (Photo: Food van at cherry blossom festival Sayama Inariyama Park – Lynda Hogan)

Inariyama Park Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossom festival at a former US military base

Food van at cherry blossom festival (Photo: Food van at cherry blossom festival Sayama Inariyama Park – Lynda Hogan)
Lynda Hogan   - 1 min read

You can see cherry blossoms in bloom in Sayama Inariyama Park from mid March to mid April. They have several different varieties of cherry blossoms, hence the hanami (flower viewing) period is longer than most. However, the park is best known for its Somei Yoshino cherry blossoms. They typically bloom the last week of March and the first week of April.

During that period there is usually a two day cherry blossom festival. (In both 2020 and 2021, the festival was cancelled due to the pandemic.) The festival generally falls on the first weekend of April. Thousands descend on the park to enjoy the live entertainment and to have a hanami under the stunning cherry blossom trees. At the festival you can find traditional food and festival stalls as well as food vans such as the one pictured above, which sells crepes. Moreover, they usually light the cherry blossoms up at night. There is often a mini train and other events for kids too.

Getting there

The park is located beside the Inariyama Koen Station on the Seibu Ikebukuro line.

By car: The nearest interchange is Sayama-Hidaka on the Ken-o expressway. There is parking for 101 cars. However, please note there maybe restrictions to the parking during the festival.

Lynda Hogan

Lynda Hogan @lynda.hogan

Lynda has been in Japan for 20 years and blogging about Saitama on her personal blog insaitama.com for 14 of them.  Despite its central location, just North of Tokyo, Saitama is still quite unknown to the international tourist, but frequented by domestic travelers. It is a great place to experien...