Shinjuku Go-yen

We had a great visit to this park and walked around the beautiful area. This was the site of the famous toilet incident as well as the place of one of my favourite photos of my gorgeous wife.
The shōgun bequeathed this land to Lord Naitō (daimyō) of Tsuruga in the Edo period who completed a garden here in 1772. After the Meiji Restoration the house and its grounds were converted into an experimental agricultural centre. It then became a botanical garden before becoming an imperial garden in 1879. The current configuration of the garden was completed in 1906. Most of the garden was destroyed by air raids in 1945, during the later stages of World War II. The garden was rebuilt after the war.

The jurisdiction over the Imperial Palace Outer Garden and the Kyoto imperial garden was transferred to the Ministry of Health and Welfare (now the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare) in 1947.

On May 21, 1949, the garden became open to the public as a national park. It came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Environment in January 2001, with the official English name "Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden". The official Japanese name remains Shinjuku Gyoen, where gyoen means "imperial garden".

In 1989, the Shinjuku Gyoen was the site chosen for the funeral rites of Emperor Shōwa before he was buried at the Musashi Imperial Graveyard.Read more