The Enchanted Hydrangea Forest

The spring rainy season isn’t the most delightful time to be in Japan…unless you’re hiking through a shady forest, surrounded by heaps and heaps of blue hydrangeas! Minamisawa Ajisai Mountain’s groomed trails wind up the side of a mountain, through a silent and stately cedar forest that’s robed in countless poufs of cooling blue andContinue reading “The Enchanted Hydrangea Forest”

Hydrangeas: Gateway To A Life Of Crime

I have a confession to make. Although my job is to write about ingenious ways people commit murder and mayhem, when it comes to obsessing about how I’d commit the perfect crime, it always ends up with hydrangeas. Yes, hydrangeas. To be more specific, hydrangea smuggling. Because before I went to Japan, I never dreamed that the humble fluffballs flanking granny’sContinue reading “Hydrangeas: Gateway To A Life Of Crime”

Great Balls O’ Flowery Fluff: Tokyo’s Best Hydrangea Gardens

If someone says “hydrangeas” and you think “boring white puffballs,” you haven’t seen the outrageous ones in Tokyo yet! Here are my favorite hydrangea garden extravaganzas, and they’ll be blooming ’til the end of June, just sayin’… MINAMIYAMA HYDRANGEA MOUNTAIN in Musashi-itsukaichi As you can see, these are wild hydrangeas at their finest! The trail winds up a gully lined withContinue reading “Great Balls O’ Flowery Fluff: Tokyo’s Best Hydrangea Gardens”