Lake Kawaguchi’s Oishi Park is already crowded early in the morning, and there are many beautiful flowers here

On the fourth morning of our 12-day self-driving trip through Hakone, Lake Kawaguchi, and Hokkaido, we headed straight to Oishi Park at Lake Kawaguchi right after breakfast. This is a famous sightseeing spot located beside Lake Kawaguchi, where a 350-meter-long lakeside promenade is lined with a wide variety of flowers.

Next to Oishi Park, there is a free parking lot, but it doesn’t have many spaces. Fortunately, we arrived early. As soon as we got out of the car, we saw a commemorative monument made of stones piled up to form the shape of Mt. Fuji. The monument was created using stones collected from 252 mountains across Japan that are affectionately nicknamed “Fuji.”

Our family walked along the lakeside path, where many different kinds of flowers were in bloom — including black-eyed Susans and other colorful varieties whose names we didn’t know.

There were also plants resembling catnip and spiraea, with insects gathering to sip nectar from the blossoms. From the path, we could see the Kawaguchiko Ohashi Bridge in the distance.

When we reached the end of the walkway and looked back, we noticed many visitors getting close to the water’s edge. As we turned around to walk back, we saw that the gate to a rose garden was open, so we went inside to take photos. The garden was filled with roses — the entire wall was covered with them.

Although it was the beginning of summer and quite hot, we didn’t really feel the heat here. The wooden boardwalk was nicely maintained, making it easy to stroll along the lakeshore and enjoy the flowers. There was also a seasonal flower calendar showing what kinds of flowers bloom here in spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Even though the summit of Mt. Fuji was hidden by clouds, we still felt very happy to enjoy the beautiful view of Lake Kawaguchi surrounded by so many lovely flowers.