Living in Japan for a year, I visited many so-called “main” or “must-see” places so now I am looking for new places to discover, maybe a bit off the beaten path. Luckily there are still many beautiful places left to see in Japan so I hope to get the chance and see as many of them as possible. This week’s trip was to Hitachi Seaside Park, in Ibaraki prefecture, to see the 見頃 migoro (peak season) for kochia’s autumn color change. I knew about this park as being famous for the blue landscape of nemophila in May, so I just recently found out about the red landscape formed by 32.000 kochia plants that turn crimson in October.
How to get there?
You can get there either by train or by bus and the trip is usually 2.3 hours long and would cost somewhere around 2,500 yen. We went there by train, Joban Line from Nippori station and returned by bus, which was actually cheaper, 1,900 yen.
Katsuta station 
Local bus from Katsuta station to the park, it takes 15 minutes to reach the park
What to do & see
Hitachi Seaside Park is a perfect destination for a day trip from Tokyo. The park is really huge so there are plenty of seasonal flowers to be admired, there are a few cafes and restaurants, food stalls with festival specialties like takoyaki and yakisoba, an amusement park and so on. A good idea would be to have a picnic there also!
The entrance is 400 yen per person, and it is usually normal in Japan to pay for such places. Kochia plants are green in autumn, start to turn red and show a gradation of colors in September and reach a very beautiful red-crimson color around October-November. If you are in Japan during that period, add this park to your places to see! I guess it is not a place you can usually find in guidebooks but it is really worth the trip!
A nice cafe
Buckwheat
Cosmos
And kochia! They might look soft but they were very crispy actually
Cute kochia mascots
Elementary school trip
There was also a pretty rose garden 🙂 
Who doesn’t love ice cream?
About my outfit for the trip, I tried to match the color of the kochia, and I wasn’t the only one! Most people I saw that day were wearing something in a similar color and that was pretty fun to notice haha.
