Saitama

After finding out that Huong had to leave Japan, I decided to make some last memories to send her off. I looked into beautiful nature spots near Tokyo and came across a place called Totoro no Mori, located in Sayama Hills.

We arrived at the train station to find that it was quite a busy day, crowded by baseball fans as there was a game going on near the stadium. We had some of the fast-food they were selling before heading away from the area, it was a beautiful walk as we were apparently in the countryside area, also known as inaka in Japanese. It was a very long walk but we managed to find the forest. It’s called the way it is because the movie, My Neighbor Totoro, took a lot of inspiration from this forest. Studio Ghibli also bought the land here to preserve it. The house where the family lived in Totoro can also be seen and visited. We walked around the forest from end to end, to end up back on the roads. The forests were separated into three zones, and to get to the second zone was also quite a bit of walk, we passed by some quaint neighborhoods, a hillside temple, some farms and natural walking trails. The journey was actually very fun, albeit tiring. Once we got to the second forest however, the fatigue quickly dissipated as we zigzagged through trees and roots, looking at all the interesting flora and fauna. The third forest was undoubtedly the biggest and the densest. There was a wooden walkway that took us above the grasslands, a bunch of flower fields and just the prettiest trees. We got lost several times inside the forests but all was well as that was part of the fun. Eventually, it was getting dark, we ended the day having sushi at a nearby conveyor belt sushi restaurant before heading back home.Read more