Karumai is a town situated on the border with Honshu’s northern-most prefecture, Aomori. The town is home to one of the prefecture’s beautiful and cute attractions that can only be seen in spring.

This can be seen at Karumai’s Yukiyagawa Dam Forest Park. This beautiful natural forest park is situated right beside the Yukiyagawa Dam, with around 24 hectares of wonderful, natural land.

The park has a wide variety of attractions for visitors to enjoy, including athletic facilities, campgrounds and even an outdoor stage. Of these wonderful spectacles, we recommend visitors go walk across the 154m long red suspension bridge built over the dam! The scale of the bridge is a given but you can’t go wrong with the breathtaking view from the top of the bridge! From the green season with lush, fresh greenery to the autumn leaves of reds and oranges, you’ll definitely be able to enjoy the beautiful view across multiple seasons.

Although the forest park is known for the attractions we’ve just mentioned, there’s actually something special that only the people in the know go and visit at a specific time of year.

It’s this amazing tulip field! Spanning over 7,000 square meters of the park, a total of around 150,000 bulbs have been planted to result in this picturesque attraction.

Every year, from the end of April to the middle of May, around 30-40 different varieties of tulip bloom, giving visitors the chance to enjoy the different variety of colors, sizes and shapes of every flower. The flowers are planted in a circular pattern, which looks like a graceful painting when viewed from above. With nothing but trees surrounding the fields, the contrast of deep green with the colors of the flowers only amplifies their beauty.

Trekking down the hills and getting right up close and personal with the flower fields gives you a great view of the 16m tall and 20m wide windmill. The combination of the colorful tulip field and the majestic windmill almost makes you think that you’re not in Japan anymore. You can enjoy this spectacle at your own pace, whether that be just to look at each flower or take photos to commemorate the occasion, here at this spacious forest park!
Going back to that windmill, it actually doubles up as a three story observation deck. You might have to wait in line as it gets popular around the time the tulips bloom, but the view is definitely worth the wait, so please go and visit when you get the chance to!

If you’re lucky, you might be able to see not only the dam but Mt. Oritsume too! An hour’s drive away from the park, Mt. Oritsume is also known as the birthplace of the himebotaru (a firefly native to Japan) and a great place to visit in the summer for the mystic views that can be seen when the fireflies start to give off light at night!

Also, don’t forget… you can try one of Karumai’s local delicacies, the sarunashi ice-cream, made from native kiwi berries! (You can also buy them from the shops in the park!)