Our 305th entry in our digital diary is our first time visit to Arakurayama Sengen Park in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. This is also our first time joining a tour group. We are joined with Ate Rei’s classmate and schoolmates. We are a total of 20 people so we hired 2 vans for this trip to Yamanashi. The drivers are actually Filipinos and one of them speaks Cebuano. 🙂

Arakurayama Sengen Park was installed in October 1959. It is located on the hillside of Mount Arakura and covers an area of about 4.3 hectares. We thought of visiting this place 6 years ago (back in 2019) when we visited several places in Kawaguchiko, but we found out that it is difficult to go here specially when you don’t have your own car. And now we are glad we finally get to see this place. 🙂

It is summer time but the leaves look like they are in Autumn mode. hehe.

It is popular and a famous scenic spot where you can see Mount Fuji, a red five-story pagoda, and cherry blossom trees at a glance. Unfortunately for today, Mount Fuji hides away from the big clouds. Huhu. I do not know if I should count this visit, or should we go back again. haha!

Sangoku Daiichisan Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine is enshrined, and Mount Arakura is a sacred area. There are about 650 cherry blossoms and a memorial tower for the war dead in the park.

This was ranked 10th among the “100 Views with Mount Fuji” announced by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment. It has also been published in Lufthansa’s in-flight magazine and textbooks used in Thai compulsory education courses, and became the cover of the 4th revised edition of “Michelin Green Guide Japan”.

This place is a park with a panoramic view of Fujiyoshida city and Mount Fuji, and is famous for its photographs of the five-storied pagoda (a pagoda for the war dead).

Fujisan Keizai Shimbun considers that the number of foreign visitors to temples and shrines around Mount Fuji has increased due to this and the influence of Mount Fuji’s registration as a World Heritage Site.

The Memorial Pagoda for the War Dead (Chūrei-tō Pagoda) is a 19.5 meter high tower made of reinforced concrete and installed in 1962. It was built to enshrine 1,055 war dead people from the city. A memorial service for the war dead is held every September.

The Sakuya-hime Stairs has 398 steps and is about 200 meters long. We used the stairs to go down while we went with the slope going up, for a different view. 🙂

And then, we stopped for the delicious display of street foods along the way going back to our van. Yum! 🙂

And that is our quick visit to the park, mainly to see the famous Chureito Pagoda. We hope to go back sometime soon, with Mount Fuji in the background already. hehe. 🙂