Today, we had another side trip. This time, it was an excursion to Hitachi Seaside Park to see Ibaraki Butterfly Blossoms, then Adachi Flower Park to see Wisteria. Our day started with a meetup at Tokyo Station. This is where we meet the bus, and start the adventure. First leg of this trip is supposed to be an approximate 2.5 hr ride to Hitatchi Seaside Park.
After eating our breakfast on the bus, we decide to start taking a nap. The bus was scheduled to depart Tokyo Station at 10am, so it was a pretty early start to the day.
After a nap, I woke up and checked Google Maps to see how much further until we should be arriving at Hitachi. To my surprise, i had probably napped for about 2 hours at this point, and Google Maps still showed we were within the Tokyo area. After another 2.5 hours, we finally arrived at our first destination. Hitachi Seaside Park to see Ibaraki Butterfly Blossoms in full bloom. This was an amazing site, as this small blue flower covered an entire hillside. From certain angles, you barely even see the green grass.
Next stop is Adachi Flower Park to see the Wisteria. Fortunately, we had purchased some additional bread and food items in the morning at our local grocery store. With the amount of traffic on the road, there was really no time to grab a bite to eat. If getting food at Hitachi, I don't think we would've had sufficient time to see the flowers.
The ride to Adachi was supposed to take approximately 1 hour. With the traffic, this actually took around 2.5 hrs. Getting to Adachi late though, we got to see the Wisteria without any insects flying around. Wincy was very greatful! While we saw some Wisteria already during our trip, the Wisteria at Adachi Flower Park was on a different level. They had plants of different sizes/maturity, but the prize attractions were their very mature Wisteria tree's. It was amazing how big, and how many flowers came off the single trunk. Before visiting this flower park, I didn't even know wisteria was a flower on a tree 🙃. Arriving here so late, we were already several hours behind schedule. As such, we had limited time here, and had to rush through the park. We had a pretty good plan though, and we're certain we saw all main attractions within this Wisteria garden.
It was a 2 hr bus ride back to Tokyo now. Yes, we spent a good 8.5 hours on a bus today! This gave us a lot of time however, to think about what and where to eat for dinner. Since the Tokyo Metro stops service around midnight, we decided it would be best to head back to the Ikebukuro area first, and eat in the area. With the limited options (that are open late) we decided to go to _____ for an AYCE Yakiniku dinner, and to select the Premium/Wagyu option. We arrived at the restaurant just before 11pm, and they showed us to our table. We had to ask the staff for the AYCE menu, as they didn't give it to us. They probably though, no one would order AYCE anymore, given their last call was at 11:30pm (They close at midnight). We still decided to go ahead though, and still feel we got our moneys worth. We only ordered premium meats, and made sure to order ample amounts as last call approached. The staff were impressed, and we finished right at midnight. What a delicious meal
