I visited the Kaisei Hydrangea Festival.

A shuttle bus connects Kaisei Station to the festival grounds, but I chose to walk from Shin-Matsuda Station instead. It takes about twenty minutes.

The route crosses the Sakawa River.

Beyond it, the Tanzawa mountains rise softly in the distance.

Fishermen stand quietly along the riverbank.

High school students cycle past.

Nothing extraordinary.

And yet, there was something unexpectedly pleasant about this ordinary everyday scene.

What struck me most in Kaisei was the sound of water.

Canals run throughout the town.
Wherever you walk, you are constantly accompanied by the sound of flowing water.

Sometimes it rushes past.
Sometimes it slips by almost silently.

With every turn, the sound changes.

It felt as though those gentle murmurs were guiding my walk.

A narrow path between rice fields.
A shrine surrounded by trees.
Low hills stretching beyond the fields.

Nothing spectacular.

Just landscapes that naturally invite you to slow down.

Even though it was a weekday, the Hydrangea Festival was busy with visitors.

What surprised me most was that almost everyone was Japanese.

The atmosphere was completely different from Hakone, where international visitors are everywhere.

There are no famous landmarks here.
No breathtaking viewpoints.

And yet people come in large numbers.

As I walked, I found myself wondering what had really brought them here.

Of course, they had come to see the hydrangeas.

But I felt that the flowers alone could not explain their presence.

Near the festival grounds stands an old thatched-roof farmhouse called Monzō.

The caretaker said something that has stayed with me ever since.

“When you come to Kaisei, become a bird.”

At first, I wasn’t sure what he meant.

Then he continued.

“Don’t look for tourist attractions. Look at the surroundings as if you were a bird. The canals, the rice fields, the waterwheels, the white herons, the fireflies that appear at dusk. You’ll notice things you don’t usually see.”

I found myself nodding almost immediately.

When we travel, we often look for something extraordinary.

A famous monument.
A spectacular landscape.
A local specialty.

But what stays with you in Kaisei is something quite different.
The sound of water.
Rice fields swaying gently in the wind.
People strolling along country paths.
Groups of children wearing bright red school caps.
White herons gliding gracefully above the fields.

Simply landscapes that already exist, without trying to attract anyone’s attention.

I grew up in a place surrounded by rice fields and irrigation canals.

Perhaps that is why.

As I walked through Kaisei, I felt an unexpected sense of nostalgia.

The sound of the water and the rural scenery seemed to reconnect me, quietly, with old memories.

It was very different from the feeling one experiences in a destination like Hakone.

It was not the excitement of discovering something new.

It was more like rediscovering something I had forgotten.

On my way home, I kept thinking about the caretaker’s words.

“Become a bird.”

Perhaps Kaisei’s charm does not lie in its landscapes themselves.

Perhaps it lies in something much simpler: changing your point of view.
Looking differently at places you thought you already knew.
Stepping back from what feels ordinary.

Then the sound of the canals, the green rice fields, and the young rice plants are no longer just part of the everyday scenery.

The sense of calm I felt while walking through Kaisei may have come from exactly that.

And somehow, it reminds me of the feeling that sometimes comes when we allow ourselves to travel slowly.