Saruka Shrine

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

Saruka ShrinelotusHirakawaMt. Iwakisummer

Photo: Raita Futo from Tokyo, Japan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · original

Ask where to send a first-time visitor for a temple or shrine in Aomori, and Saruka Shrine comes up more than once.

Saruka is an old shrine on the Tsugaru plain, associated with healing of the eyes and with agriculture, and it sits at the edge of a 6.3-hectare park with Mt. Iwaki filling the western horizon. What makes it worth timing is the pond.

Kagami-ga-ike is planted with wa-hasu, the Japanese lotus, and from mid-July to mid-August it disappears under them — a solid surface of round leaves and pink flowers from bank to bank. Lotus open at first light and close by the middle of the day, so this is a morning site or nothing. The park is free, has parking for two hundred cars, and is reached in fifteen minutes on foot from a small private-railway station. Almost nobody outside the prefecture knows it exists.

Visiting essentials

Best time to visit

Mid-July–mid-August for lotus, in the morning before the flowers close

Hours

Shrine and park open during daylight hours

Closed: Open year-round

Admission

Free | Free parking for around 200 cars

Time to allow

45–60 minutes

Finding your way there

Access notes

175 Ishibayashi, Saruka, Hirakawa. About a short walk from Tsugaru-Onoe Station on the Konan Railway Konan Line from Hirosaki, or by car from Kuroishi IC. Free to visit, with free parking; the adjoining Saruka Park has around 200 free spaces. Lotus bloom from around mid-July to mid-August.

Beyond the guidebook

**Morning, and early.** Lotus open at dawn and shut by around midday. Arriving at two in the afternoon in August means a pond full of leaves and no flowers. **Mid-July to mid-August.** Outside that window there is a shrine and a park and no lotus. The peak is usually the last week of July. **Mt. Iwaki is the backdrop.** The park is laid out with the volcano to the west, which on a clear morning gives you lotus in the foreground and a symmetrical peak behind. **It is an eye shrine.** Saruka is prayed to for the eyes, and the votive plaques reflect that — a specific and slightly unusual local devotion worth noticing. **Free, with 200 parking spaces.** No admission anywhere on the site, which for a lotus garden of this size is unusual.

View on Google Maps