Inokashira Park

Following the Ghibli Museum we took a walk through Inokashira Park. The park is quite large (38.5ha) and was first opened in 1918, at the time the park was considered a gift from the Emperor to the general public (the first park to be founded in Tokyo in such a way).

On our walk, we were lucky enough to come across what appeared to be a few early blooming Cherry Blossom (or Sakura in Japanese) trees (or, if not, some trees with pretty pink flowers).

The park includes a large pond in its centre which is surrounded by many trees including Cherry Blossom's - though these had not yet bloomed. It made for a lovely site on a cold winters day, I can only imagine how great it would look in spring. The pond also attracts much wildlife including (apparently) migratory birds which call the pond home in winter.

There were many people in the park (as you would expect) and you could hire paddle boats which seemed very popular. It is said that if you ride on a boat in the pond with a girlfriend you will 'surely break up soon' - so I guess it's lucky we did not have time to do that.

Inokashira Park is one of 81 parks managed by the Bureau of Construction in Tokyo. According to the Bureau, the total area of parks in Tokyo comes to 7,642 hectares which is the equivalent of 5.77 square metres of park per person.

From Inokashira Park we walked up to Kichijoji Station which is a short walk through bustling streets lined with interesting stores. I would love to come back and explore this area further.

Despite a minor hiccup getting on the wrong platform, we managed to find out way back to Shinjuku and our hotel to collect our bags before heading to Nagano.Read more