Spring road trip Day 3 - Hitachi Seaside Park

This is the last day of our spring road trip. We accomplished what we headed to this area for on Day 2 (Zao Fox Village, Ebisu Circuit Drift Taxi and Kaiseizan Park), so we're ready to start making our way towards home! 

We got our free breakfast in the morning in a much less hectic lobby area on a Monday, packed up our bags and checked out of our rooms. A short but reasonably pleasant stay at Toyoko Inn Tobu Utsunomiya.

My husband drove us to Hitachi Seaside Park, about 1.5 hours from Utsunomiya by car. Google Maps navigation takes you to the entrance of the park, but not the parking lot lol. Fortunately, the signs were relatively easy to follow and the parking lot is quite huge. 

We paid for our admission tickets at a vending machine and went right in. The sun was shining and it looked like a great day for strolling around although it was quite windy in some spots.

First things first, my mom very much wanted to rent bikes. After seeing the size of the park, we knew that would be the right choice and apparently it's the most popular way to get around here. There are multiple bike rental spots throughout the park, but since we entered through the west gate, the west bike rental was the closest to us. Staff there helped us purchase/pay for the bike rental tickets (3 hours) and then set up the bikes for us. My parents chose a tandem bike and had to sign a waiver lol. It was a quick and easy process. 

There is a designated bike path that goes around the park which makes it really easy to get around. At pretty much any point of interest will be a bike parking area (clearly marked). These are the only areas you should leave your bike so it's not in the way of other patrons. 

We first stopped at the nemophila area! It was supposed at 30% on the day of our visit. Not nearly full, but still pretty interesting and nice against the clear blue sky.

It's actually quite a huge hill with lots of walking paths around it. It was really windy and cold in this area, so we didn't stay long. I can't even imagine what this area is like at 100%. Makes sense why people come to visit specifically for it. 

We continued our way through the park, just kind of having fun riding the bikes around. Admittedly my dress was a little short for this (I didn't think about it too much beforehand having not anticipated the bikes lol). 

We basically just stopped wherever we saw something that caught our eye. Sometimes we'd have to stop to check the map too because there's lots of "circles" that can lead you in all different directions. 

We made our way to the central area of the park where there in a giant ferris wheel, some food stalls and a bunch of carnival-looking games and rides for kids. This seemed like a good place for a break.

We got two tornado potatoes from one of the food stalls. You can add your own flavored powders but it was pretty windy so they were a little hard to get onto the potato lol. 

After the snack and a water break, we still had more to do!

Finally made our way all the around to the tulip fields. These were supposedly in full bloom, and there were so many of them - all different shapes and colors and varieties.

Once we had our fill of tulips, we made our last stop at the narcissus field. This area was also supposedly near full bloom. So many yellow flowers! Narcissus have a little bit of a scent too, which is light and pleasant. 

Finally, after about 2.25 hours, we're headed back to our original bike rental station. We passed a circle with some somewhat decent sakura trees (full bloom definitely past by like 1-1.5 weeks) so we do a few laps and try to get some pictures in there lol. 

And we're back! The 3 hour rental was definitely sufficient for us. Good enough for 4-5 major stops and a few quicker ones as well. They also have an all day bike rental available, but supposedly they were "sold out" for the day when we got there about 45 minutes after the park opened. But it worked out for us anyway. We were able to simply return the bikes and exited the park the way we came. 

If you're considering a visit to Hitachi Seaside Park, definitely plan to rent the bikes or bring your own! It's the best way to get around. 

There's a Costco just across the street from Hitachi Seaside Park, so we stopped there for a little bit of household shopping and a simple lunch. My dad wasn't a fan of the bulgogi bake but it seems like online there are others that are big fans of it (I don't mind it but things without much flavor are kind of my thing lol). My husband had the most variety with his shrimp bisque, acai bowl and hokkaido soft cream. 

From there, with our Costco rotisserie chicken in the trunk intended to be lunch for the upcoming work week, we headed straight home. While there was another park on the itinerary initially, we decided it wasn't worth going. We had already been to 4 very different parks in 3 days. Got back to the house after about a 3 hour drive and our spring road trip was officially done! 

Thanks to my husband's driving, we started [Day 1] Saturday morning in the Yokohama area, drove through Tokyo to get to Akebonoyama Park in Kashiwa, stopped for a delicious Indian food lunch, got to the Hanamomo Matusri at Koga Kubou Park in Ibaraki and then settled in Utsunomiya where we stopped by Wakayama Farm Bamboo Forest after sundown! Then on [Day 2] Sunday, he got us all the way up to Zao Fox Village in Miyagi, then we had a great umen experience, was awed (and got motion sickness) in a Drift Taxi at Ebisu Circuit in Fukushima, and finished off the day with the best, fullest bloom sakura in Kaiseizan Park and the last servings of fried pizza in Koriyama. For [Day 3] Monday, we had so much fun riding around on bikes at Hitachi Seaside Park and seeing all kinds of flowers. 

I'm so happy with what we were able to pack into these 3 days. Even though two days were during the weekend and it seemed like there were a lot of tourists coming into Japan during this period, none of the places were outrageously crowded or involved crazy waits except the gyoza place on Day 1. All of these areas are definitely worth visiting, especially if you can time it right with the season. I'm happy to have the opportunity to explore more of Japan and thankful to have been able to share it with my husband and my parents! 

Would you visit any of these places outside Tokyo?

💮 Spring road trip series 

Day 1 - Akebonoyama Park, Koga Kubo Park & Wakayama Bamboo Forest

Day 2 - Zao Fox Village, Ebisu Circuit Drift Taxi & Kaiseizan Park

Day 3 - Hitachi Seaside Park