Travel Tips

Spring of Tokyo begins from opening of professional baseball game in Tokyo Dome and flowering of cherry blossom of Rikugien.
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the fifth Shogun has given this land(151,200sq.m.) to his grand chamberlain Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu in 1695.Yanagisawa spent more than 7years to build up this Rikugien (garden ) as his second house with beautiful garden (he lived here in his last 5years with wife). He might have loved waka(31-syllabel) poems or for other reasons, created 88 scenes which are described in famous Kokin-waka-shu poems, together with streams, pond, mountains and a lot of plants.
"Rikugi " stands for 6 basic components of kanshi (Chinese poem). If Bushi(Samurai) in those days wanted to succeed in life, definitely need to be educated, connection and a little money to open his door.
Now you can walk around in 87,809sq.m. area and this garden is designated as a special historic site by the national government. You can rest at chaya(tea house) in this garden and try to taste traditional Japanese maccha(powdered green tea) if you like and many souvenirs are displayed at the kiosk.

Shidare Sakura (Weeping Sakura) in Rikugien Garden is very famous.