Hanami-yama that means Flower Viewing Mountain is a miraculous Satoyama (village-vicinity hill). In the spring, not only cherry blossoms but also flowers of various colors are in full bloom.
A flower and fruit grower lost their fields in the recession and financial crisis that struck Japan in the 1920s. They cleared the remaining hill forests, planted flowering trees, and spent 60 years on changing the hill into a field to produce a flower and fruit. Pushed by the requests of acquaintances who wanted to see it, the grower began to open to the public in 1959. Now, it has become a representative spring attraction of Fukushima. When visiting a few years ago, the bus stop at Fukushima Station was crowded with visitors to Hanamiyama, and the parking lot is lined with a huge number of sightseeing buses. Though it has become such a tourist destination now, it is amazing that the grower family maintains the hill without public support.
I was skeptical about it because of the story that it was created by an individual. In reality, unlike the natural mountain and the planned park, it was just the beauty of utopia, in which various colors were little by little arranged over time, likening the hill to a canvas. It is an ideal Satoyama (village-vicinity hill) that is rare to exist, created by the owner who had memorized the state of spring in his body through farming, and this overlapping of flowers is a magic that can be done only by the climate of Tohoku. It is full of lively spring, which is different from the blossom of only cherry flowers.
Click here for your impressions
reference
"ふくる通信 平成28年３月号”(福島市観光案内所,2016)
花見山のホームページ
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