The most popular symbol of Japan is the Cherry Blossom, rather the plural form of it the Cherry Blossoms. The flowers bloom for a week and yet their beauty is representative all year round. The Japan men’s rugby team is called ‘Brave Blossoms’ and the inexplicable jumble of words adding character to soft beauty.
The darker and deeper beauty of autumn, the lush greenery of summer or the hard and bare beauty of winter are closer to the abstract nature of bravery but then they don’t define a nation as closely as Cherry Blossoms.
I have spent close to two decades in Japan and the years have not dulled the appreciation for beauty of cherry blossoms. Every year the bloom seems fresh, the flowers transitioning every so gently from white to pink, the petals slowly stripped away in the early spring wind, littering paths only to be swept away a few days later.
The bloom of 2022 is the third season under the pandemic, the caution of the first year giving way to hope of the second and finally resignation in the third. The pandemic ebbs and rises, the hope of today turns into despair tomorrow and the only certainty for the day after is in it’s uncertainty .
The Tokyo Metropolis has an abundance of option for Cherry Blossom viewing and a few websites rank them on various criteria. The weather site Tenki.jp raked a few spots on the basis of their popularity and I decided to visit the top three ranked places. There was time to cover another spot and I chose the first ranked place as it was located right in the centre of the city.
The Winner: Meguro River Walkway（目黒川）
My first Sakura party in Tokyo with business partners was at the Meguro river in 2008 and I have fond memories of sitting by the river, and I have gone back to the place a few times over the decades. The walkway next to the river is lined with around 800 Cherry Blossom trees and walking along the two kilometres path, back and forth, is part of the experience. There are a few restaurants and cafes, including the largest Starbucks in Tokyo, vendors set up temporary booths selling everything from fried chicken on a stick, to kebab, dumplings , anything that goes with a drink.
The path was crowded on the evening I went there, groups of people walking along the path, converging around the drink and snack booths and a few like me armed with cameras trying to capture the experience.
The Second Spot goes to: Ueno Park（上野公園）
I have visited Ueno Park a few times over the years but never to view Cherry Blossoms. There is a Zoo next to the park, home to the famous Panda twins born in June 2021. The park and the Zoo are in the city centre making it easily accessible to people living in Tokyo.
I visited the park the flowers were in full bloom with the large crowds that accompany the event. The multicultural character of Tokyo was in full evidence Chinese and Vietnamese students mingling with Nepali and Indonesian families, a few Indians and British and American accents slipped in the din of thousands people walking the paths.
A school choir performed at the off-park stage and there was an almost enchanted feeling standing at the edge of the park, listening to the choir and watching the flowers in bloom.
The Third Place goes to: Asukayama Park（飛鳥山公園）
The Asukayama park is the odd one in the list, considering it is based on popularity. The park is located in the North of Tokyo bordering the Saitama prefecture and the visitor numbers do not seem to be high. However the park dates back to the 18th century when Yoshimine Tokugawa(1684-1751) the eighth Shogun of Edo period decided to build a pleasure playground for the residents of what was then called Edo(old name of Tokyo).In the Meiji period(1868-1912) Asukayama was designated as one of first public parks of Japan’s new capital.
The park is located on a hill and is accessible from the Oji station on the Namboku line or the JR Station on the JR Tohoku Honsen. The walk from the Namboku line station involves using a pedestrian bridge over the train lines and then climbing up the staircase of the hill.
There was a large group of mothers and kids at the park at early evening and a few college students played with a frisbee in the middle of the park. A group of Vietnamese girls posed for one another taking pictures on their cellphones for the two hours I spent in the park and a photographer looking took pictures of a girl in a short sleeveless dress in the late evening chill.
The warm early spring days had given away to a chilly evening and a cold breeze blew across the park. The frisbee players abandoned their play, the mothers packed up and left on their bicycles, s part of security guards kept watch over the visitors and the girl in the short sleeveless dress still posed for the photographer.
The Fifth Place goes to: Yasukuni Shrine(靖国神社）
The Showa Memorial park at Tachikawa at fourth. Tachikawa is an hour’s journey from Tokyo, so I gave it a pass and visited the Yasukuni Shrine and the adjoining Chidorigafuchi moat. When you consider the area covered, the size of crowds and the sheer volume of trees, this collection of Cherry Blossom trees should be ranked at the first place.
The place is located in centre of Tokyo, within walking distance from most of the major business districts, connected by three train lines, yet inexplicably it ranks at five.
The Yasukuni shrine has the tree which serve as the indicator of start of the cherry blossom bloom. The Japan Metrological Agency announces the start of the bloom when one of the trees at the shrine shows 10 flowers in bloom.
The area is crowded through the day, the best time to visit is probably early in the morning. Crowds walk around the shrine, along the moat and into the Kitanomaru park viewing the trees, a few line up to boat in the moat and converge on the spot where the branches of a cherry blossom tree project into the water, providing a bower to stop for a few minutes, take pictures and make way for the dozens of other boats waiting to get in.
