Mocha Pinku
- Feb 5
- 3 min read

Atami Plum Garden

Updated: Feb 18

in Shizuoka, Japan

The Atami Plum Garden in Shizuoka holds an annual Baien Ume Festival each winter. The garden covers over 14,000 square meters and is home to around 500 plum trees and over 50 different varieties. There are various local vendors selling food, drinks, snacks, and local crafts in the park during the festival. They even have special performances for entertainment. The plum blossoms are in bloom from January to March each year with different varieties of plum blossoms blooming at different times. The garden was created by a wealthy merchant and opened to the public in 1886. It is said to have the earliest blooming plum trees in Japan as well as the latest occurring autumn leaves in the country.

My Experience

We visited the park in the first week of February, when over half of the plum blossoms were in bloom. There are 270 early blooming varieties, 102 mid blooming varieties, and 97 late blooming varieties, so not all the trees will be in bloom at the same time. We tried to time it so we could view the park when most of the trees were in bloom (over 60% were in bloom when we went)! We took the train from Tokyo in the morning, which took about a couple hours. There are a few ways to get to Atami from Tokyo, but I love riding the Tokaido line to Shizuoka, because it goes right near the ocean for a good portion of the ride as you get closer to Atami. We went to Kinomiya, the nearest train station to the park and then walked from the station. I will note that the walk up to the park is not that long, but it is a little steep! There is also a bus that goes directly to and from Atami station, which we used on our way back.

We arrived at the park around 11:00 in the morning and there were a decent amount of people inside, but it wasn't overcrowded or anything. I think there were mainly older local groups visiting the park. There also were still many places to sit down and enjoy the view.

There are multiple small areas of shops selling food, snacks, and drinks. You can buy plum wine (umeshu) made from actual plums in the park! I will say it was very strong and tasted like liquid umeboshi. It was definitely a lot more sour than the umeshu you get in restaurants! They also served various types of food and local snacks like manju, etc. They had a performance in the afternoon of a street performer specializing in yoyo, juggling, and kendama. It was a fun show! I believe they also had a monkey performer in another area, but we didn't stay to watch.

The park takes about 2 hours to walk around. There is a beautiful waterfall, Korean garden, and foot bath area, so there was a lot to see and walk through! There were also just so many different types of plum blossom trees. There were a lot of pale plum blossoms in full bloom that slightly resembled cherry blossoms, as well as a few darker pink and purple-ish varieties. I love the willowy ones but they weren't quite in bloom yet I felt. They even had a small art museum (Sawada Seiko Memorial Museum) and a small cafe on the premise. I would say the prettiest view of the park was near the cafe. You could overlook the entire park from above near the wall.