Chidorigafuchi Moat

Chidorigafuchi was our morning destination, a moat around Tokyo’s Imperial Palace and gardens and the city’s most sought-after sakura spot. It features cherry trees on both sides of the water and allows visitors to rent rowboats while enjoying magnificent sakura views. When we reached, there was already a queue and it was raining very mildly. We joined the queue and were informed that the boating would be cancelled if it rained heavily. It was a tough call but we tried our luck, waited for around 45 minutes and managed to get a rowboat just in time. It was the best sakura experience by a margin. The trees on either side looked beautiful. The boating was fun. It did start raining more heavily after a point but we had an umbrella and had covered most of the moat by then. We headed back, dropped off the boat and looked for a place to grab some brunch. We found a pan-Asian place, which had a predominantly Indian menu. The walk to the place, which was in the Chiyoda district, was really nice with many streets lined with cherry trees in full bloom. For the first time in our trip, it really felt like the city had changed colours. After being underwhelmed by Indian food in Japan multiple times, this place turned out to be pretty good. While the rainy weather was a bit of a disappointment, the food lifted our spirits and we decided to head to a museum for the afternoon.Read more