Koishikawa Korakuen Garden

akudagawa0001 2025. 4. 21. 17:26

To get to Korakuen Garden, you can get off at JR Chuo Line's Suidobashi Station or Marunouchi Line's Korakuen Station. It took about 25 minutes to walk from Ochanomizu, so thankfully it wasn't too far from the station. Korakuen was started in 1692 by Tokugawa Yorifusa and completed during the time of his successor, Tokugawa Mitsukuni. Generally, Korakuen is said to be a chisen style garden (a garden created by excavating a pond) and specifically a kaiyu-shiki garden (a strolling garden where you walk along paths around the pond and appreciate the scenery). It wasn't a karesansui (dry landscape) garden that expresses the universe with rocks and sand, like the one I saw at Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto.

the garden's pond is modeled after Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. And that white building you see in the background is the Tokyo Dome.

That stone bridge is truly beautiful. It looks like a scene straight out of a Japanese haiku poem.

it's amazing how such a large garden can exist right in the middle of the city. It really does feel like you've suddenly wandered into a forest while walking through the urban landscape. But wow, it's full of couples here too... It wasn't just Yokohama. This is a singles' hell too! It's definitely a great place for a date, though. You can walk and rest, enjoying nature... If you walk quickly, you could probably see the whole place in about 20 minutes, but no one walks like that. Everyone strolls slowly, leisurely. It feels like time has stopped.

there are a lot of Kimono ladies here today. they blend perfectly with the scenery here.

I came in around 3 o'clock, and taking my time to look around and rest, it was almost 5 o'clock by the time I was done with the garden. Since Tokyo Dome is supposed to have decent night views, I decided to wait until sunset. Tokyo Dome is right next to Korakuen. It seems like it would be best to visit Korakuen on a weekday morning. Less people would definitely make it better for enjoying the natural surroundings, and on weekend afternoons, you can hear the cheering from the baseball games at Tokyo Dome and the screams from people riding the roller coasters at LaQua. It kind of ruins the atmosphere.