Tuesday 5 April 2011

Sakura in Shinjuku

Endeavouring to make the most of the short time left of the holidays, I met a friend yesterday and went to Shinjuku Gyoen. It's arguably the best place for cherry blossoms in Tokyo. More relaxed and peaceful than Ueno, less morbidly gothic than Aoyama and Yanaka cemetries, less dusty than Asukayama, and more varied than Inokashira, I can see merit in the claim.  It has a botanical garden function as well and there are signs and information cards informing the variety of names of  plants.  A day with Mrs Higuchi is always refreshing - aside from being a really nice person and good fun, she's the only person in Japan not related to Hiro that has sufficient patience to weather my Japanese!
Picnicing
A peach with different colour blossoms
Painting the blossoms


NTT Docomo Tower from Shinjuku Gyoen
So pretty
A weeping cherry
The same weeping cherry

A little earthquake damage
Flowers under the trees
A more nature like part of the garden

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very nice photos. Madeline

Cecilia said...

Arigatou.
The weather so far this sakura season has been perfection. :)

gaijinwife said...

Love the two pinks together. We have some lovely trees in bloom down here now. Perhaps I should get the camera and go out walking. Such a lovely day for it.
xxx

Cecilia said...

Highly recommend it.
It's a very cheering thing to do :)

Jessica Renshaw said...

Cecilia, I hope you don't mind my copying one or two of your photos of sakura for my blog His Scribbler. I have been posting all kinds of heroes, happy endings, ways to help, answers to prayer for Japan and want to share these too. Sakura represent such hope for the Japanese and I agree with you the people should have been permitted to enjoy their traditional celebration of thie beauty. I'll give you credit for the pictures.

Cecilia said...

No problem at all.
Thanks for keeping people's focus on here.

tvrossel said...

Lovely photos. Wish I could have been there for your picnic ;-)

Cecilia said...

Last week of March, first week of April. Lots of spare futons. Sakura at their best - you're always welcome! Picnic with plum wine, yakitori and good sushi - though we'll have to hide the plum wine as we enter the garden since it's a dry zone. :)