Tag: Tokyo

Koishikawa Botanical Garden, a much larger and nicer blossom site

Well, April 5 turned out to be even nicer than the 4th, and during the evening of the 4th, once I got back to my apartment I decided to look for some other site to scout for cherry blossoms. I got lucky and browsed around, until I saw an article on the Koishikawa Botanical Garden, which was recommended as a very nice place to see cherry blossoms, as well as lots of other springtime flowers, away from most of the foreign tourists.

That’s not to say it was empty, there were lots of locals, families enjoying picnics and kids playing and all enjoying the beautiful weather.

The grounds of the park are huge, and there are lots of places with steep climbs, lots of paths deep in the trees, and it was a bit tricky to climb in some places. But, getting to see all the different types of flowers was worth the cost in energy!

There are historical aspects to the park, as well, as it was one of the first established medical schools in Japan. In honor of the original purpose there is a section where they still grow all the medicinal herbs that were used during the Shogunate, and parts of the original hospital are still there.

So, it was enjoyable, walking around and seeing all the beatiful trees and flowers, but I dreaded the return to the station, because even though it was a long hill to walk down to the park, walking back up after all the walking I did in the park with its own hills, was, well, not so much fun! I made it though, and on my way back to the apartment I stopped to see if the local Monzennakacho festival was going on, and it was! But that’s for another post, meanwhile, more blossoms!

First blossom day, part 2: Shinjuku Chuo Park

So, after leaving Sumida Park, I took the train to Shinjuku, about 30 minutes away. I put “Shinjuku Park” in the train schedule app, which gave me directions to what I thought was the main cherry blossom park in Shinjuku. When I got there, I was a bit underwhelmed by the park. It turns out there was a good reason for that, I had put in the wrong destination, I should have put in Shinjuku Gyoen Botanical Park, which is much larger and more impressive! (I’ll go there some other time, but it won’t be quite the same!) In the words of Jack Reacher, “Details matter!”

So, I didn’t see quite as much at the park as I wanted, but I did get some nice shots of things in the park near sunset. The park is basically in the middle of official buildings, like the Tokyo Municipal Government building, a very impressive building that has free observation decks (which I hope to get to while I’m here).

Tokyo also has some unique architecture, like this building, nicknamed the “Cocoon Building”.

So, after I entered the park, I noticed that there were some trees around the central lawn, and some people taking advantage of the day to get some late-afternoon “hanami” in. There weren’t that many people, but there were some families and some school kids there, and the setting sun did make for some interesting shots.

There was also a local shrine, which had some nice trees on their grounds.

All in all, it was a nice wrap-up of a very nice day, one of the first on my trip so far! 

The next day, Saturday the 5th, I went to a much larger and nicer park,
the Koishikawa Botanical Garden, but that’s for another post, soon!

My first blossom day, part 1: Sumida Park

Well, Friday the 4th finally cleared up, weather-wise, and I got to go where I failed to get to on Thursday, which is just as well, given how much nicer the wather was on Friday! I’m breaking this day’s report in two parts, because I got so many great shots of blossoms in Sumida Park and Shinjuku Park, that I don’t want to make a boringly large single post!

I’ll start with Sumida Park, at the beginning of the day. I made it up to Oshiage, which is a part of town at the foot of the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower, which is so huge that pictures can’t do it justice! It’s over 640 meters tall which works out to just over 2080 feet! I didn’t go up to the observation decks on this day, that will be for another day, today was for cherry blossoms!

After a short quarter-mile walk towards the river, I reached Sumida Park, which basically has two spaces, a small plaza-like park, where lots of people were enjoying their “hanami”, a couple of shrines, and a long narrow walkway park on both sides of the Sumida River, each side stretching for about a kilometer, 0.6 miles.

I ended up walking the whole way on both sides, as well as a short time in the plaza part. The walkway is where there were all kinds of booths, selling different kinds of food and drinks, and I got to see the tourboats cruising the river, full of tourists looking at the blossoms on both sides.

The cherry trees weren’t the only things blooming, of course, there were flower beds all along the river, with all kinds of flowers all blooming at once. It was also kind of neat interacting with the birds, I’ve noticed that the birds are practically tame, they will let you come within a couple of feet of them, and they don’t usually fly away, they kind of walk away, looking at you, as if to say “what, no food? What good are you? I’m outta here!”

So, I ended up going over one of the bridges to Asakusa, to catch a train to Shinjuku Park, another well-known park with lots of cherry trees. But that’s for the next post!

Some night shots along the Sumidagawa, bridges and birds and boats, oh my…

So, I set out on a chilly day that wasn’t raining much, intending to go to Sumida Park, up near Sky Tree Tower, but when I got to Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station, I discovered that I had left my Suica fare card back at the apartment. I didn’t want to make the mile or so walk back just to get the card and walk the mile or so to the station again, so I decided to just roam around the Kiyosumi area, to see what I could see. I ended up going further north, up to Morishita, almost halfway to Sky Tree, but it was getting late and I figured I’d better head back south toward Monzennakacho and my nice warm, dry apartment!

So, I made my way back to the river, because I knew there was a park and walking path pretty much all the way down, on both sides of the river. I got to see part of the city skyline, and Sky Tree of course. There was also this huge bird, I think it was a heron, perched on the railing, casually walking down the rail, I got within 5 feet of it, and it just looked at me! I’ve noticed the birds are all remarkably calm around people here!

I got a bit turned around a couple of times, because I thought for some reason I was south of Kiyosumi, but I was actually north. Once I got my bearings, I got to catch them lighting up the bridges, some of which were historic!

At the end, I decided to try to see some more of the illuminated cherry trees along the canal in Monzennakacho, before retiring for the night.

A bit of illumination, in the cold and dark

So, Monday evening after sunset I decided to go down to the middle of Monzennakacho, down by one of the canal/rivers that run through town, to see what the illuminated cherry trees looked like. It was really cold, about 42 degrees with a steady wind making it feel like the 30s, but I layered up and walked down. For a stretch of one of the rivers, there were lanterns hung in the trees on both sides of the river, and a dock where brave evening tourists could ride an open tour boat along the shore. I took the landlubber route, and just walked the 3 or so blocks that were lit. The trees were still not 100% full, in fact there were quite a few that were still in the bud stage, so there’s still time once it warms up to go see them later this week or maybe the weekend. I also plan to go to the more touristy places over the weekend and early next week, if the blossoms hold up. I may have to head to other places as well, where blooming is taking longer.

At any rate, I saw these Monday evening.

Some pictures on my first walkabout.

So, Wednesday morning broke nice and clear, except for the dust blowing over Tokyo from China, but otherwise the day started nice. I decided I would walk around the neighborhood a bit, to see if I could see any cherry trees blooming along the Sumida River, which is about a quarter-mile from my apartment. I made my way down to the riverbank, which has a park and walkway all along the river on both sides, and started north.

After walking for a while, I found that I was very close to one of the city’s parks, Kiyosumi Gardens. I decided to go ahead and check out the park, which is a nice, well laid-out Japanese garden, with hundreds of interesting rocks from all over Japan, and some wildlife in the form of birds and turtles, as well as hungry koi fish in the large pond/small lake. They charge a small admission fee, and I was able to finagle the senior rate, which was 70 yen, or about 45 cents! Who says Japan is expensive! 🙂 Sadly there were no cherry blossoms, but there were some flowering bushes, not sure what kind though.

After strolling through the park for a while, making a full circuit of the paths, I decided to get some lunch, and on my way out the gate I saw a Denny’s down the block! Unfortunately, at 1:30 PM they had a lot of people waiting, especially families, so I changed my plans and started walking down the street. I ended up going into this little ramen shop and having a big bowl with a side of rice and pickled cabbage. The ramen had a piece of pork so well cooked it practically fell apart in my chopsticks, and the noodles were cooked just firm enough, and the broth was really really good and salty.

Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of the shop or the food, I didn’t ask permission and I didn’t want to be one of “those” tourists and act like I owned the place, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It was a whole universe better than any cup ramen you might have had, though!

From there, my trek took me on a subway ride to Shinjuku to the apartment office to tell them of a maintenance issue I had, and then back to Monzennakacho on a different train line. When I got back to the apartment I checked my health app on my phone and found that I had walked over 5 miles! I hadn’t intended to walk quite that far on my first day, but thankfully I have been working up to it over the past year or so.

Anyway, that’s all for Wednesday! I took Thursday off so I could get these pictures ready!

Science fiction boat in Tokyo!

One of the neat things in Tokyo is a tour boat company that runs different types of tour boats up and down the Sumida River, in the heart of Tokyo. Three of the boats were designed by famous Japanese science fiction creator Leiji Matsumoto, and the boats are designed to resemble space ships. The interior of the boats are very 70’s sci-fi, and have retro-style tables and sofas. I happened to catch one while I was walking on the walkway along the Sumida.

Nerdtour Japan 2018 – Birthday washout…

Well, I was here in Tokyo for fireworks on my birthday, but Nature conspired to send a typhoon my way, which forced Tokyo to delay the fireworks.  It wasn’t a total washout, I did manage to celebrate by going to Akihabara, which turned out to be much closer to my apartment than I originally thought, only a couple of stops on the subway.  The fireworks will go off today, Sunday, but I had already made other plans for this evening, so I’ll end up going to one of the other Tokyo fireworks displays they have over the next couple of weeks.

Some pics from the last few days:

Kamakura fireworks Tuesday

Kiyosumi garden:

Akihabara on my birthday: