The land that became Hitachi Seaside Park carries the scars of the twentieth century. During World War II, the site served as the Mito-Higashi Airbase, a military installation for the Japanese armed forces. After Japan's surrender, the U.S. Air Force confiscated the property and converted it into a bomb-training ground. For nearly three decades, the land sat under foreign military control. Local campaigns to reclaim the site persisted, and after more than ten years of demanding reversion, the land was finally returned to the Japanese government in 1973. Planning for the park began in 1979, construction started in 1984, and the first 70 hectares opened to the public on October 5, 1991. The decision to build a flower park on a former bombing range was deliberate -- a symbol of peace and renewal on land that had known only military purpose.

The nemophila display is the park's signature. Each spring, during the event called Nemophila Harmony, 4.5 million baby blue-eyes flowers bloom simultaneously on Miharashi no Oka -- the park's main hill. Nemophila (Nemophila menziesii) is an annual wildflower native to North America, with small five-petaled blooms so pale and translucent they seem to glow. Planted densely across the hillside, they create an unbroken field of blue that merges with the Pacific sky at the crest. The effect is disorienting and beautiful: depth perception fails where flowers meet horizon. The bloom typically runs from mid-April through early May, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from across Japan and beyond. What makes the display remarkable is its scale -- not a garden bed, not a cultivated border, but an entire hillside engineered to disappear into the color blue.

Hitachi Seaside Park does not rest between nemophila seasons. The 190-hectare park cycles through color all year. Spring opens with a million daffodils and 170 varieties of tulips before the nemophila take over. Summer brings roses and zinnias. But autumn delivers the park's second visual spectacle: the kochia. Thousands of Bassia scoparia -- round, bushy plants that look like green puffballs through summer -- begin their transformation in October, turning from vivid green to blazing crimson. The kochia fields on Miharashi no Oka glow red against the autumn sky, a dramatic counterpoint to the cool blue of spring. Cosmos flowers bloom alongside the kochia, adding purples and pinks to the hillside. The park is a landscape designed to be perpetually in the act of becoming something else.

Beyond the flower fields, Hitachi Seaside Park holds a small amusement area with a Ferris wheel that offers elevated views across the plantings and out to the Pacific coastline. Cycling trails thread through the park's seven distinct zones, covering terrain that ranges from forest groves to open meadows. The park previously hosted the Rock in Japan Festival, one of the country's largest music festivals, held each August with stages set among the greenery. The nearest railway station is Ajigaura Station on the Minato Line of the Hitachinaka Seaside Railway, reached via Katsuta Station on the JR Joban Line. The coastal setting means salt air and sea breezes are constant companions to the flower viewing -- a reminder that this botanical park sits at the edge of the Pacific, on land that has traveled a long road from airstrip to bombing range to one of the most beautiful public gardens in Japan.