Weeekend Trip to lake Kawaguchiko from Tokyo during cherry blossom season is highly recommended for photographers who want to capture the Japanese trademark picture at its full glory. It gives us beautiful locations where one can capture the magnificent mountain, hanging cherry blossom flowers, shadowing lake shores, and red pagoda.
Lake kawaguchiko is most famous lake among the Fuji five lakes and also is easily accessible from Tokyo. One can admire the magnificent Mt. Fuji from all its shores, though the view from lake’s northern shores is breathtaking during the cherry blossom season.
Eastern shores of the lake has other tourist attractions and hot spring resort town.
Observation deck at Arakurayama Sengen Park to capture the iconic picture of Chureito Pagoda along with cherry blossom trees and Mt. Fuji representing Japan is not to be missed location near Kawaguchiko.
This shrine lies on the mountain top at Fujiyoshida city and was built as a peace memorial in 1963. In this one day weekend trip from Tokyo, we covered these two major places which are dedicated for cherry blossom season.
Walk Through Our Path to Lake Kawaguchiko
How to get there
There is a direct bus connectivity from Shunjuku station to Kawaguchiko station, takes around 2 hours.
During cherry blossom season, they increase the bus count to accommodate the crowd willing to enjoy the blossoming season at Kawaguchiko.
We booked our bus tickets online website, though you can opt to buy it at near the bus spots.
This bus spot, Shunjuku Highway Bus Terminal is at 3-4th floor of the building just opposite to the South Gate of the Shunjuku station.
Time to Visit
We took bus around 7:15 am, but because of traffic congestions, reached Fujiyoshida bus stop around 9:30 am. Being photography enthusiast, our first target was to capture the iconic picture of Chureito Pagoda.
This pagoda lies on the mountain top, so you need to climb around 400 steps to reach their. Though the path is covered by hanging cherry trees (650 count) and I believe it is a beautiful picturesque journey itself.
Photography spots at Chureito Pagoda
During cherry blossom season, lot of crowd gather to capture this famous framed picture, so the line to enter the observation deck could be long. We waited in queue for almost 2 hours to reach the deck.
However, due to cloudy weather, Mt. Fuji was blanketed and we could not take the iconic shot. We were disappointed, but still we managed to take some beautiful shots of pagoda along with cherry flowers.
Note- I would also like to point out here that though the authorities has kept the designated spot to capture the iconic picture, but you can even take similar picture from the hiking trails behind that spot. In that case, you don’t have to wait in queue and save much time.
While coming down, you can take pictures with pagoda and then further down visit the shrine. By the time we came down, we were famished and ate at local food trucks near the entrance of shrine.
Photography spots at Lake Kawaguichiko
Moving ahead, we walk till Fujiyoshida station to take train to Kawaguchiko station. Check the schedule of train beforehand, it is not frequent.
From kawauchiko station, we took the red line bus to reach the northern shores of lake kawaguchiko. The path around this shores are fully covered by cherry trees and is quite famous for photographers. You can see many photographers with their tripods being set to capture the beautiful sakura with Mt. Fuji during sunsets.
Since the branches of tress are soo low, you can easily capture blooming cherry flowers with Mt. Fuji and Lake Kawaguchi as the background. Also you can do good macro photography with Sakura flowers.
We take a stroll along the path and finally went down to the shores to take some time-lapse videos.
This place is also famous for photographers who like reflection photography. Since the lake is huge, you can easily take the reflection of whole Mt. Fuji on the lake water.
By the time of sunset, people started gathering near the shores to enjoy the sunset with their drinks (hanami). We sat near the shores till the sunset and enjoyed the calmness and peace it reflected.
It was so mesmerizing that we didn’t realized how much time we spent on the same spot.
By this time the cloud cleared and we could see the huge and magnificent Mt. Fuji standing in front of my eyes. I was so amazed by this scene that I promised myself to come back to this spot again.
Thinking about it, we came back to kawaguchiko station by taxi and waited for our highway bus scheduled at 8:15 pm. While returning the bus ran on time and reached Shinjuku station at 10 pm.
Japan Cherry Blossom 2025 Forecast (Updated)
- Tokyo Flowered: March 23 / Full bloom: March 31
- Sapporo Flowering: April 27 / Full bloom: May 1
- Sendai Flowering: April 6 / Full bloom: April 11
- Kanazawa Flowering: April 6 / Full bloom: April 11
- Nagoya Flowering: March 26 / Full bloom: April 5
- Kyoto Flowering: March 29 / Full bloom: April 6
- Osaka Flowering: March 30 / Full bloom: April 6
- Hiroshima Flowered: March 29 / Full bloom: April 7
- Fukuoka Flowered: March 26 / Full bloom: April 4
