Japan 2018 - Part 1

As mentioned yesterday we had a return visit to Toyko at the end of March. This trip was planned for some time and we had hoped to see the cherry blossoms, it was always a risk with only one week as to whether we would be there at the peak but fortunately we were very lucky!
On our first morning, we had a tempting glimpse of what may be ahead with a small park outside our hotel full of blossom.


Looking back up at our hotel - The Ginza Creston, our room was on the second from top floor on the right hand tower above, and gave some fantastic views of the city below.

Our first planned location was the gardens and park at the Meiji Shrine, we had visited this shrine previously, so the visit was for the gardens. The shrine is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken.  However despite being a highlight in the guide book and on several on line lists the gardens and woodlands had a more natural wild feel with very few flowering trees.

Although mostly lacking in cherry trees, the grounds still had a few, the view above from a small bridge was in a quiet part of the park. As our first visit, this was slightly disappointing, having only arrived a few hours early, a tired and jet lagged pair of travellers were mildly grumpy with the lack of pink!
Outside of the tranquillity of the park we dived into Takeshita Street, a road famed for pop culture and eclectic dress from the youngsters in Tokyo. It was packed, and in total contrast to the park.

But wanting to embrace the blossoms we headed to Shinjuku Gyoen, a large park, that was also highly recommended by the guide we had - having double checked via Google images first that the park did indeed have plenty of trees we arrived.

This time it was much more as we had expected, long avenues of trees, and large crowds of people picnicking, and celebrating the start of a new season

NTT Building from Shinjuku Gyoen

  The park itself is worthy of exploration in its own right, It has a modest entrance fee of just 200 yen (Approximately £1.35 / $1.90). The contrasts between the park and surrounding towers reminded me of our trip to New York and Central Park back in 2013.   To wrap up the day we headed to the famous Shibuya Crossing, the shear number of people crossing at once and in many directions really has to be seen to be believed. On one side of the square is a Starbucks on the second floor of a large department store, if you can get a window seat its well worth grabbing a spot and watching the chaos. Which is exactly what we did - plus the extra caffeine was much needed.   After a surprisingly good nights rest we again headed out to explore the area around Sensoji Temple. Sensoji  is an ancient Buddhist temple located close to Asakusa metro station. It is Tokyo's oldest temple, and one of its most important.  

Photographers at Sensoji

  Again lots of crowds, as tourists and locals mixed together to enjoy the warm weather. We visited this temple last year, but the main pagoda was undergoing restoration and covered by scaffolding. Fortunately this year the work was complete and we could enjoy the restored building - complete with requisite cherry blossom. All around the temple are narrow lanes and shops, well worth exploring, and for the cherry blossoms the temple grounds housed a number of food stalls.   From here we again ventured onto the underground system (very easy to use as all signs and announcements are made in both Japanese and English), and to Ueno Park. One of the largest parks in Tokyo and home to various museums.  
Even the swan boats were color co-ordinated with the blossoms!


The festival like atmosphere continued and we had to have some of the food.


  Again thousands of people were out enjoying the park, many bringing picnics, despite the crowds and lots of alcohol everything seemed so good natured and with no obvious problems that you may see at a music festival or similar.     With dusk approaching we headed back into the center of Tokyo and enjoyed a magnificent sunset as the sun went down behind the Tokyo Imperial Gardens.