44 best Golden Week 2026 events in Tokyo

This open-air observation deck on the rooftop of Shibuya Scramble Square boasts 360-degree views of the city and you can see all of Tokyo’s major landmarks including Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Skytree and even Mt Fuji on a clear day. What's more, the observation deck boasts a stunning rooftop bar that's gearing up to reopen just in time for Golden Week on April 29.

You can order snacks and drinks such as beer, wine, cocktails and mocktails at the bar, which will be open from 4pm until 10pm every evening, giving guests a chance to catch the sunset as well as Tokyo’s stunning skyline at night.

If you’re craving some Taiwanese food this spring, then drop by Tokyo Skytree Town for its Taiwan Festival. Head over to the fourth floor of Sky Arena until May 31 to feast on Taiwanese food throughout the day. Several stalls are offering popular Taiwanese festival cuisine such as lu rou fan (braised pork over rice), sheng jian bao (pan-fried soup dumplings) and da ji pai fried chicken.

You can also shop for Taiwanese goods and even enjoy massages and fortune telling. The dining area is decorated with red and Tainan-style vibrant lanterns to give it a Taiwanese night market feel.

Niku Fes is back this Golden Week, bringing one of Tokyo’s biggest meat festivals to Odaiba. This year’s edition is the longest in the event’s 12-year history, running from April 29 to May 10, with plenty of live music alongside an extensive line-up of meat dishes.

You can feast on all kinds of meaty treats, from A5-grade steak and wagyu sushi to Philly cheesesteaks, juicy cheeseburgers and rich beef curry, courtesy of around two dozen restaurants from across Japan. Each one earned its spot after being selected from more than 100 applicants.

As for the drinks, there will be craft beer from Abashiri Beer in Hokkaido and refreshing Mexican Cuervo lemon sours to accompany your meal. You can enjoy desserts, too, including churros, gelato and kakigori shaved ice. 

While there are plenty of benches to sit on, including a family area which is available after buying 10 meal tickets, purchasing the premium lounge ticket gets you a dining space for four people. This deal features table service in a comfortable, shaded seating area. You can reserve it in advance on the website for ¥9,800. 

On April 30, May 1, 7 and 8, the entire facility will transform into a beer garden from 4pm to 9pm, when their original beers will be ¥500.

Need a break from all the eating? Head over to the stage area for live music during the day. Headliners and specific event details are yet to be disclosed.

Entry to Niku Fes is free and you can just buy food and drink as you go. All booths accept contactless credit cards and transportation IC cards, but for added convenience, we recommend picking up a meal ticket bundle at the ticket booth or through the official Niku Fes app.

Head over to Komazawa Olympic Park during Golden Week to spend an entire day sampling some of Japan’s best gyoza. There will be 16 stalls offering more than 30 different styles of this quintessential Japanese dumpling. Enjoy grounded wagyu beef and the meaty keema curry gyoza from Tokyo's Tamagawa Meat, juicy Shinshu wasabi and miso dumplings from Nagano, tangy and succulent lemon gyoza from Kyoto, Hakata-style hitokuchi (bite-size) gyoza and much more.

There will also be other dishes like fried rice to go with the gyoza, as well as craft beers from Hokkaido Brewing, Yatsugatake Beer and Kanagawa's Brimmer Brewing. There’s no entry fee, so you can just pay as you go. If you want to forgo the hassle of paying at each store, there is a package deal sold online for ¥4,500, which includes five ¥700 meal tickets, five ¥100 tickets, and one fast-pass ticket that lets you skip a queue.

Japan’s biggest Cambodia Festival takes place over the Golden Week holidays at Yoyogi Park Events Square. This two-day celebration of Cambodian culture features traditional dance performances, plus roughly 70 stalls serving authentic Cambodian cuisine such as the refreshing Num banhchok, Angkor beer, handicrafts, and more. The festival takes place from 10am to 7pm on both days.

Entry is free and you just pay for food and drink as you go.

Taking over the expansive outdoor lawn within the children’s play area at Meiji Shrine’s Outer Gardens, the Forest Beer Garden distinguishes itself from other boozy events in town with its lush green surrounds and bubbling waterfall.

The popular two-hour all-you-can-eat (¥5,980; ¥4,980 on Apr-Jun weekdays excluding hols) option includes everything from barbecue beef, pork and lamb to veggies, yakisoba noodles, fried garlic rice, sausages and even ice pops. It includes an all-you-can-drink selection of eight kinds of beers including Kirin and Heineken, in addition to whisky, sours, wine and soft drinks.

Continuing from last year, the beer garden is offering a special all-you-can-drink craft beer option for an additional ¥1,500. The selection includes four craft beer options from Spring Valley Brewery, like the Hojun Lager 496 and Jazzberry. Despite being one of the largest beer gardens in Tokyo with a capacity for around 1,000 people, the event can get extremely busy at weekends, so advance bookings are recommended via the website.

Popular German craft beer brand Schmatz takes over the Lumine Ikebukuro rooftop with its annual beer garden serving modern German cuisine. The premium all-you-can drink plan features three original craft beers, plus a range of beer cocktails including shandy gaff, cassis beer, mango beer and even a peach weizen. Additionally, there are regular cocktails, highballs, wines and soft drinks to choose from as well. 

The standard barbecue plan with the premium 2-hour all-you-can-drink option will set you back ¥6,500, and includes spare ribs, beef shoulder loin, specialty sausages, chicken, corn and an array of veggies to grill. If you're looking to save, the standard all-you-can-drink lager beer plan at ¥6,000 is worth considering too.

Make a reservation via the official website.

Why wait until autumn to celebrate Oktoberfest? While the original Oktoberfest in Munich doesn't kick off until September, Tokyo's beer lovers can enjoy celebrations throughout spring, too. Odaiba’s outdoor Oktoberfest falls during Golden Week, when revellers can gorge on suds, sausages and sauerkraut by the waterside.

Held all across Germany to celebrate the coming of spring, Frühlingsfest is also a familiar feature on Yokohama's Golden Week calendar. This year's edition features taps serving many types of German beer that you can't find anywhere else in Japan, such as Hofbräu's Maibock lager and Krombacher & Plank's pale lager.

Pair your brews with an extensive selection of food, including sausages, schnitzel, roast beef and diced steak with frites. New this year, the festival will also feature an outdoor barbecue area by the seafront, sponsored by outdoor gear brand Coleman. Enjoy a variety of skewered meats, locally sourced seafood and vegetables in an authentic camp-style setting, complete with a campervan, plus a dedicated grill and table for each slot. Reservations and details regarding the menu will be announced on April 10 at 10am on the official website.

There’s plenty to keep kids entertained, with this year’s edition featuring a bungee trampoline, craft workshops, a petting zoo and a laser tag booth. Meanwhile, adults can look forward to live oom-pah music.

Entry to the event is free and you just pay for food and drink as you go.

With sun, sea, sand and excellent movies, it’s no wonder that the Zushi Beach Film Festival is a popular fixture on the Golden Week calendar. This open-air cinema in Kanagawa prefecture is organised by Cinema Caravan, a group of artists and creatives who plan community events around the world. Every year it brings this event to Zushi, with movie screenings on the beach plus food stalls, a bazaar and live entertainment.

The 13-day festival is screening a variety of Japanese and international films; a few of them are in English with Japanese subtitles. Every day is a different movie and the show starts at a different time. You'll find the film schedule here.

This Golden Week, an outdoor cinema festival is taking place at six different locations around Yokohama’s seaside neighbourhood of Minato-Mirai. You’ll be able to catch both Japanese and international movies at the various venues across the holidays from May 2 to May 6. While most films are dubbed in Japanese, there are three movies that will be screened in English with Japanese subtitles.

All of the English-language movies are being screened at the Marine & Walk Yokohama. You can catch the Hong Kong action film 'Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In' featuring Sammo Hung and Louis Koo on May 3, 'The Straight Story' by the late David Lynch on May 5 and an A24 4K restoration of the 1984 concert film 'Stop Making Sense' featuring David Byrne on May 6. All three showings start at 6.40pm (doors open 2pm) and no ticket is required – just show up and enjoy the film. 

You can also catch movies at Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse, Pacifico Yokohama, Bay Quarter and World Porters. A live broadcast talk show will also be taking place at Yokohama Hammerhead. For more information about the screenings, check the website.

You can catch free movies at Shibuya Stream this spring at the outdoor main staircase and Inaribashi Square from April 28 to May 10. Two to three different films will be screened each day, including the likes of ‘Green Book’, ‘Wicked' (2024), ‘Notting Hill’, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home, 'The Intouchables’ and 'Back to the Future'. 

Most movies will be in English with Japanese subtitles, but there will also be a few dubbed in Japanese. Screening times depend on the day, but you can check the schedule on the event website.

The event is free and no tickets are required. However, reservations aren't accepted and space is limited, so we recommend arriving earlier to guarantee a seat.

The UNU farmers’ market is one of Tokyo’s longest running and best-attended markets. Taking place every weekend in front of the university’s Aoyama headquarters, this one always attracts a knowledgeable crowd. Organic and local fare is readily available every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm, with the farmers themselves happy to provide details about their wares. Plus, there's always a few food trucks on hand if you wish to enjoy a quick meal.

Do note that the market will be cancelled in the case of rain. Check the event Instagram for the latest updates.

Katsushika Hokusai is all the rage in Tokyo. Last year saw several acclaimed exhibitions dive into the ukiyo-e master’s ginormous oeuvre, and the Edo native’s iconic art has also been the subject of some pretty remarkable reinterpretations lately.

Next up in highlighting the printmaking genius is the National Museum of Western Art, whose exhibition ‘Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji from the Iuchi Collection’ marks the first public unveiling of this remarkable group of works placed on deposit at the museum in 2024.

The exhibition showcases all 46 prints from Hokusai’s iconic series Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji (c. 1830–33), alongside two additional impressions of his most beloved masterpieces, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (commonly known as ‘The Great Wave’) and Clear Day with a Southern Breeze (known as ‘Red Fuji’). You can look forward to exceptionally well-preserved impressions, including a rare indigo-printed ‘Blue Fuji’ version of Clear Day with a Southern Breeze.

Bringing together all 48 works, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience Hokusai’s enduring vision of Mt Fuji within Japan’s premier museum of Western art – a fitting setting for appreciating his art’s timeless dialogue between East and West.

Having spent over four decades redefining the relationship between art, technology and desire, Hajime Sorayama is one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Noted for his iconic Sexy Robot series and his pioneering fusion of human sensuality and mechanical precision, Sorayama’s work has influenced generations of creators across art, design and popular culture – from RoboCop to Dior. His visionary approach, uniting the sensual with the synthetic, has earned him international acclaim and a lasting place in the subcultural art canon.

Opening this spring at the Creative Museum Tokyo, ‘Sorayama: Light, Reflection, Transparency -Tokyo-’ marks the artist’s largest retrospective in Japan to date, following its acclaimed debut in Shanghai. The exhibition traces Sorayama’s artistic evolution from his first robot painting in 1978 to his latest digital and sculptural works. Visitors will encounter highlights such as the original Aibo robot design for Sony, the artwork for Aerosmith’s Just Push Play album, and an immersive installation that embodies Sorayama’s lifelong pursuit of capturing light, air and reflections.

By blending futuristic imagination with classical mastery, Sorayama invites viewers to contemplate a world where human emotion and machine form merge in radiant harmony.

This winter, the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo presents a landmark exhibition tracing the evolution of Japan’s landscape printmaking from the twilight of the Edo period (mid-1800s) to the dawn of modernity.

At the heart of the survey stands Kiyochika Kobayashi (1847–1915), often called ‘the last ukiyo-e artist’. Published from 1876, his Tokyo Famous Places series transformed the traditional woodblock print aesthetic by infusing it with Western notions of light and shadow. Through his ‘light ray paintings’, Kiyochika, as he was known, captured the melancholic beauty of a city in transition, the lingering spirit of Edo illuminated by the glow of modernisation.

His vision, steeped in nostalgia yet alive with innovation, profoundly influenced the shin-hanga (‘new prints’) movement that emerged in the early 20th century under artists such as Hiroshi Yoshida and Hasui Kawase. These successors revived ukiyo-e craftsmanship while reimagining Japan’s landscapes for a new era.

Drawn from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, ‘From Kiyochika to Hasui’ reunites these masterpieces with their homeland, illuminating how light, both literal and emotional, guided Japan’s printmaking into the modern age.

Internationally recognised photographer and film director Mika Ninagawa is hosting a solo exhibition at the homey and intimate DDDArt art gallery in Shimokitazawa this spring. Much smaller in scale than the likes of her recent projects in Kyoto, at Expo 2025 and Tokyo Node, the exhibition takes a step back to revisit Ninagawa’s body of work, from her early career to her latest creations.

Coinciding with the launch of her latest photo book with the same name, the exhibition brings the artist’s worldview to life in a physical space. As if the vibrant pages of the book were superimposed onto reality, the tatami-floored kominka folk house is reborn with shimmering crystal strands, red and pink paint splatters and super-saturated photo prints.

Running until May 31, the exhibit is only a short stroll away from Shimokitazawa, where Ninagawa herself spent over a decade in her formative years. Why not take a detour towards Sangenjaya for a creative journey on your next visit to the area?

Creepy-crawlies in all their vivid and alien-like forms take centre stage at ‘Insects’, a special exhibition on show from March 21 to May 24 on the first basement level of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

Highlighting photographic works by Kenji Kohiyama and explanations by Takeshi Yoro, two professors who have been chasing bugs for over 70 years, the exhibition features prints, installations and 3D video works that magnify their tiny subjects several hundred times over. The result is a rare glimpse into the mysterious and wondrous world of insects, revealed in extraordinary detail.

Professor Kohiyama’s striking photographs are presented alongside Professor Yoro’s explanations and thought-provoking reflections, prompting visitors to wonder, ‘What on earth am I looking at?’ – and to search for nature’s own answers.

The exhibition is closed on Mondays (except May 4) and May 7.

Hirohiko Araki began serialising JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1986, launching a saga that has since spanned decades, generations of protagonists and shifting aesthetic paradigms. Renowned for its flamboyant characters, bold compositions and philosophical undercurrents, JoJo stands apart for its synthesis of classical art, fashion, music and pop culture. With cumulative circulation exceeding 120 million copies, the series has become a global phenomenon, while Araki himself has become recognised as a singular figure bridging manga and contemporary art.

From January 8 to June 28, the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage Tokyo Gallery presents this three-part exhibition that foregrounds Araki’s work through the lens of fine-art printmaking. The exhibition has previously been shown in San Francisco and Kyoto, but this marks the first time Araki’s lithographs and lenticular works are displayed in Tokyo.

To allow visitors to encounter as wide a variety of works as possible, the exhibition unfolds in three rotations: Part 1 (January 8–February 23), Part 2 (March 3–April 19) and Part 3 (April 28–June 28). At the heart of the display are nine lithographic prints, produced in 2025 at the request of Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage and representing Araki’s first foray into lithography. Unlike conventional manga printing, which reduces drawings to stark black-and-white data, lithography preserves the artist’s hand with remarkable fidelity. Drawing directly onto metal plates with lithographic pencils and chalk, Araki has embraced the medium’s irreversibility: lines cannot be erased, lending each mark a palpable tension and decisiveness.

The resulting prints, featuring figures such as Jotaro Kujo and Dio, reveal a new intimacy with Araki’s lines, from the controlled force of slow strokes to the rhythmic energy of rapid shading. Each work is produced in an edition of 100, printed by master lithographer Satoru Itazu.

Complementing these are lenticular works depicting protagonists from Parts 1 through 6 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Utilising a technique with roots in early 20th-century optical experimentation, these prints create the illusion of depth and motion, activated only through the viewer’s movement. As one shifts position, time seems to unfold within a single image – an effect that resonates with the manipulation of duration and perspective, a familiar technique in manga.

Together, the lithographic and lenticular works position JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure as an evolving artistic practice – and one that continues to expand the possibilities of manga within the broader history of visual art.

Donald Judd was one of the most decisive figures of twentieth-century art; an artist whose rigorous thinking reshaped the conditions under which art is made and experienced. Emerging from painting in the early 1960s, Judd developed three-dimensional works that rejected illusion and hierarchy, insisting instead on clarity, material presence and spatial integrity.

Beyond form, he was equally concerned with context: how, where and for how long a work should exist. His writings, architectural projects and advocacy for permanent installations reveal an artist for whom art could never be separated from its environment.

The Watari-Um’s ‘Judd | Marfa’ traces its protagonist’s radical vision through the lens of his life and work in Marfa, Texas. After leaving New York in the 1970s, Judd transformed former military and industrial buildings in the remote desert town into sites for the permanent installation of his own work and that of artists including Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain. These spaces, later formalised through the Chinati Foundation, remain preserved as Judd intended.

The exhibition brings together early paintings from the 1950s, key three-dimensional works from the 1960s to the 1990s, and extensive archival materials (drawings, plans, videos and documents) that illuminate Judd’s conception of Marfa as a total environment for art, architecture and living.

A special section revisits The Sculpture of Donald Judd (1978), organised by museum founder Shizuko Watari, underscoring the museum’s long-standing engagement with Judd’s legacy. Together, these materials articulate Judd’s enduring conviction that the installation of art is inseparable from its meaning.

Emerging in the wake of the Margaret Thatcher era, the Young British Artists (YBAs) and their contemporaries embraced shock, irreverence and entrepreneurial flair. While the YBA label (applied after the landmark 1988 ‘Freeze’ exhibition organised by Damien Hirst) was often contested, it came to define a generation that reimagined what art could be. Painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation all became tools for probing themes of identity, consumer culture and shifting social structures. 

The National Art Center’s ‘YBA & Beyond: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection’ is the first exhibition in Japan devoted exclusively to British art of the 1990s. Featuring around 100 works by some 60 artists, the show captures a turbulent and transformative period in British culture, when politics, society and art collided to spark a wave of radical experimentation.

Highlights include works by Hirst, Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen, Lubaina Himid, Wolfgang Tillmans and Julian Opie, alongside others who reshaped contemporary art on a global stage. More than a retrospective, ‘YBA & Beyond’ offers a vivid portrait of 1990s Britain, an era when art intersected with music, fashion and subculture, leaving a legacy that continues to resonate today.

The historic Shiseido Gallery presents a tribute to the visionary graphic designer Masayoshi Nakajo. Five years after his passing, the exhibition revisits Nakajo’s long and influential relationship with the cosmetics company through around 200 works spanning more than four decades.

Nakajo played a pivotal role in shaping Shiseido’s visual culture, producing posters, packaging and advertising designs that blended playful experimentation with refined elegance. Visitors will encounter iconic graphics created for Shiseido Parlour, including biscuit packaging, wrapping papers and promotional posters, alongside original drawings shown publicly for the first time.

A central focus of the exhibition is Nakajo’s work as art director of Hanatsubaki, Shiseido’s influential cultural magazine. A special reading corner allows visitors to browse some 350 issues published between 1982 and 2011, offering insight into his distinctive editorial approach, where typography, illustration and photography interact in dynamic visual rhythms.

Known for his free-hand compositions and intuitive use of form, Nakajo once said he always chose ‘the design most likely to sing’. This exhibition captures that spirit, where letters become melody, images move like choreography, and graphic design reveals its expressive, almost musical potential.

Ron Mueck has long been celebrated for redefining figurative sculpture through extraordinary craftsmanship and emotional acuity. After early work in film and advertising, the Australian-born, UK-based artist emerged on the contemporary art scene in the mid-1990s, gaining international attention with Pinocchio (1996) and Dead Dad (1996-97), the latter exhibited in the landmark ‘Sensation’ show at London’s Royal Academy in 1997.

Over the decades, his meticulously crafted human figures, rendered at startlingly altered scales, have probed themes of vulnerability, solitude, resilience and the fragile complexity of existence. With a rare and limited oeuvre of about fifty works, each sculpture distills months or even years of observation and reflection, resulting in pieces that feel at once hyper-real and quietly enigmatic.

From April 29 to September 23, the Mori Art Museum hosts the artist’s first solo exhibition in Japan in eighteen years. Organised in collaboration with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, the exhibition gathers eleven works tracing Mueck’s evolution, including six making their Japanese debut. Its monumental centrepiece is the Japan premiere of Mass (2016-17), an immersive installation of 100 giant skulls reconfigured to reflect the museum’s architecture. Other highlights include Angel (1997), Woman with Shopping (2013) and the iconic In Bed (2005), each inviting viewers into a deeply intimate emotional space.

Complementing the sculptures, photographs and films by Gautier Deblonde offer a glimpse into Mueck’s studio practice, revealing the quiet rigour behind some of contemporary art’s most affecting works.

The Tokyo Station Gallery presents the first major exhibition in Japan to feature the works of Swiss artist Karl Walser (1877–1943), who built a multifaceted career that spanned painting, illustration, book design and stage production. Bringing together approximately 150 pieces, many shown for the first time, the retrospective is especially notable for its focus on the time Walser spent in Japan.

Closely associated with the Modernist Berlin Secession movement, Walser’s art blends the somber tonalities of fin-de-siècle aesthetics with refined, luminous colour, producing images marked by an enduring sense of mystery. Long overshadowed by his younger brother, the writer Robert Walser, his oeuvre is now receiving renewed scholarly and public attention.

The exhibition traces Walser’s evolution from his early Symbolist-inflected paintings and Jugendstil-inspired drawings to his prolific output as an illustrator and designer for major literary figures. But its most compelling part highlights the artist’s 1908 journey to Japan, undertaken during a period of personal crisis. Travelling through Tokyo, Kyoto and Miyazu, Walser produced a remarkable body of watercolours and sketches depicting festivals, landscapes and everyday scenes. Rarely exhibited, these works stand out for their vivid chromatic sensitivity and documentary value.

Further sections explore his collaborations in theatre and mural painting, revealing an artist whose practice consistently bridged visual art, literature and performance, and whose vision continues to resonate across disciplines.

Head up to Ibaraki's Hitachi Seaside Park from mid-April to early May and see a whopping 5.3 million 'baby blue eyes' – also known as nemophila – flowers in full bloom. The hilly grounds span 3.5 hectares and are almost completely covered with the little blue blossoms, making for a pretty spectacular sight.

The blooms are usually at their best from mid- to late April, but they are still a magnificent sight if you catch them a bit earlier or even right after peak bloom. According to this year's forecast, the flowers will be in their full glory between April 16 to 25.

Along with the flowers, the park has gone all-out with blue food and drink for you to enjoy during your visit. Sample blue ramune-soda-flavoured soft cream served with nemophila-shaped cookies, pretty blue iced tea, blue dango skewers, lattes and even a blue-tinged crêpe. While you're at it, pick up a few souvenirs to take home with you including nemophila cotton candy, cookies and jewellery featuring the flower of the season. 

The park is home to various other spring flowers, too, including daffodils and tulips, which also bloom between late March and late April.

The annual Fuji Shibazakura Festival is returning this spring with a staggering 500,000 pink, purple and white blooms from April 11 to May 24. With its seemingly endless fields of shibazakura (pink moss) and view of majestic Mt Fuji on the horizon, it's no wonder that this annual spring festival out at Lake Motosu in Yamanashi typically attracts hordes of Tokyoites over Golden Week. 

In addition to the eight kinds of shibazakura, you’ll get to see other colourful blooms like cherry blossoms, grape hyacinth, poppy anemone, forsythia, primrose and Japanese azalea. While you’re here, it’s also worth checking out the adjacent Peter Rabbit-themed English Garden, decorated with around 300 kinds of plants as well as figurines of the characters from the storybook. 

One of the best ways to get here is by highway bus. A round-trip ticket including festival entry fee starts from ¥9,000, with the bus departing from an area in front of Kogakuin University near Shinjuku Station West exit, or a different route from Shin-Yokohama Station. It takes you directly to the Fuji Shibazakura Festival in around two and a half hours. We recommend making reservations in advance because seats can fill up quickly.

Otherwise, you can opt for the two-hour-long Limited Express Fuji Excursion train from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko Station, and hop on the Fuji Shibazakura liner shuttle bus for another 40 minutes to get to the venue.

For one of the best shows of wisteria in this region, you'll have a make a day trip to Ashikaga Flower Park in Tochigi prefecture. The annual, ever popular Fujinohana Monogatari Ofuji Festival runs from April 11 to May 20, with the evening light-up set for April 18 to May 20. 

The park is one of Japan’s top destinations for wisteria, boasting 350 trees that bloom from mid-April to mid-May. The stunning flowers, which dangle from wooden trellises, come in a riot of colours including violet, blue, pink, white and yellow blossoms. Each colour tends to bloom at different times: pink first, followed by purple, white and then yellow wisteria.

Prepare your ponchos and panniers, as Harajuku J-fashion icon Sebastian Masuda has opened his first large-scale solo exhibition in years in Hyper Museum Hanno. The exhibition, running from March 14 to August 30, is packed with psychedelic candy-coloured installation rooms, art pieces and sculptures by Masuda himself, created over the years and brought to Japan for the event.

The exhibition unfolds across six themed spaces presented in a loose chronology, tracing Masuda’s formative experiences and how he arrived at his own understanding of kawaii after navigating personal conflicts.

While it’s taking place a bit outside central Tokyo, the exhibition offers an approachable but deep dive into Harajuku kawaii while prompting a look at where the culture is headed next. Be sure to visit the museum pop-up shop, which stocks exclusive T-shirts, stickers, omamori amulets and more.

Tickets are now on sale via Asoview, Artsticker, Lawson Ticket and Seven Ticket.

Love a good shopping spree? Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama have discount stores offering big brands at low prices

Warm up as well as rejuvenate your body and mind at these scenic hot spring resorts, easily accessible from Tokyo