The day I got back from camping, Fumie happened to hear from a taxi driver about a small out-of-the-way shrine not too far away that had a nice bloom of wisteria (or fuji – 藤 – in Japanese), so yesterday afternoon we made the 45 minute drive to Sandai Temple in Kusatsu to check it out.

I guess wisteria is normally a climbing plant, but here they have them dangling from horizontal trellises. They were mostly purple/lavender, but there were some light pink ones as well.

There were a lot of big bumblebees among the flowers (two can be seen in the photo above), and one had to sometimes dodge them as they barreled along.

The shrine is quite small and located in the middle of nowhere, grouped with a few houses but otherwise surrounded on all sides by field after field after field. (See any of the “full exif & map” links under each picture for a satellite view of the area.)

It's free to enter, but they suggest a donation of 200 yen (two bucks) per person. I tried to give them more, but they refused. They've even arranged for free parking at a school or somesuch next door.

The parking lot had a slide and some swings, and other play activities that Anthony was much more interested in than the flowers.