Tag: flowers

Meiji Jingu Shrine, dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and his wife

So, I haven’t posted as often and as much as I should have, so now while I’m recovering from my “ouchie”, I’ll pass along some of the things I did a couple of weeks ago.

Back on April 7 I decided to head down to the Harajuku area, which is close to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and his wife the Empress. The Emperor was restored to the throne in 1868 when the last of the Shoguns was overthrown, and he was the driving force behind modernization of Japan to 19th Century Western standards, in industry, technology, science and politics. The movie “The Last Samurai” was set in the early Meiji Era, heavily fictionized of course, but many aspects were based on actual historical events, like the last of the samurai who wanted to maintain the traditions of the feudal era, some of which conflicted with the Emperor’s modernization effort. Emperor Meiji is revered to this day for laying the groundwork for the modern Japan.

The entrance to the shrine is a very large torii gate, since the shrine was basically a place to worship the spirits of the late Emperor and Empress. It’s really nice, going in there’s a long path through the trees, which looks like a small forest, you can hardly tell that you’re in the heart of the biggest city on Earth. There are a couple of interesting things, there’s a huge collection of sake barrels, each wrapped in straw and marked with the brewer’s names and family crests. There’s also a huge rack of barrels of burgundy from France, which are being aged and consecrated on the shrine grounds.

To get to the actual shrine, you pass under a really huge torii gate, one of the largest, and it’s amazing that it’s made of wood from 1500 year-old trees.

The main shrine grounds are very neat, and inside there are a few sacred camphor trees. One pair of trees is tied together, and represents a married couple, supposedly to help bless the couple. There’s also a tree around which prayer tablets can be hung, and selling blank tablets and good fortunes are how the shrine can make money to keep the shrine going, as well as to feed and house the shrine staff.

Moving out from the shrine proper, I followed various paths around the rest of the grounds, where I saw various lawn areas and a huge flower garden. Unfortunately not all the various kinds of flowers were blooming, yet, although they may be by the time I leave. I may go back here, if I get the chance. There were a couple of cherry trees still in bloom, and other bushes I couldn’t identify.

As the sun was getting ready to set, the skies cleared up and I took more pictures on my way back to the entrance. The lanterns were being lit, as some parts of the grounds were getting dark. From here, though, I left the grounds and made my way literally next door, to the entrance of Yoyogi Park, which is where I got to see a lot more flowers, including a lot more cherry blossoms.

But that will wait for the next post!

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!

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!