Hamarikyu Gardens
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The Hamarikyu Gardens sits in the heart of Tokyo; nestled between Tsukiji, Ginza, Tokyo Tower, and Tokyo Bay. Though this peaceful park is located in the middle of the city, it’s large enough to be immersive. You don’t feel like you’re in the middle of a city - until you look up and notice the skyscrapers. However, even the skyscrapers are designed to minimize their intrusion into the park; when they were built, they had to adhere to a certain color scheme (blues and grays) to match the sky! This adds to the tranquility of the experience. This park is so large; there are spaces where you are enclosed in heavily wooded areas, and there are also wide open spaces where you can enjoy the panorama of the park with its ponds and the backdrop of the modern city.
Originally, these gardens were the family gardens of a shogun (military ruler of Japan), and they also functioned as an outer fort for Edo castle! There were two main gates at the entrance to the gardens. If an enemy force came in through one gate to invade the castle, the outer gate could be closed, trapping them inside. Then, the defenders could shoot all the trapped invaders with arrows from the safety of the second gate. Sneaky, efficient, and deadly. When the Meiji Restoration took place in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the shogun military government met its demise, the gardens were given to the royal family. Finally, after being subject to significant destruction from a major earthquake and WWII bombing, the gardens changed hands again and were donated to the City of Tokyo in 1945. The City of Tokyo began restoring the gardens, which were reopened for visitors in 1946.
We were sad to have missed cherry blossom season and wisteria season when we visited the park in June, but thankfully we were still able to see many flowers - and without the crowds! It was nice to be able to enjoy leisurely wandering around without being jostled and rushed by masses of tourists. There were even many dogwood trees, which we enjoyed seeing, since dogwood flowers are the town flower of Fairfield, CT, Michelle’s hometown. More than just flowers, the park is filled with greenery and many lovely, tall trees, including an impressive 300-year-old black pine tree. Its spreading branches are supported by wooden poles, and it’s protected by a little wooden fence. When we visited in the fall, it was nearly time for the leaves to change color, but the foliage would have been much more striking just a week or two later. And even in the fall, there were flowers to enjoy! We also saw a few grumpy-looking stray cats.
The park has many main paved walking paths that take you through the main areas. There are also various dirt paths that lead through the trees to the different areas.
Hamarikyu gardens was historically home to many ochaya, or teahouses, which were damaged during the earthquake and bombing in the mid-twentieth century. Fortunately, they are slowly being restored to their former glory! Why so slowly? One major reason is the way that they are being restored. They only use traditional building materials, and they only employ builders who use traditional building methods! There aren’t very many builders who have the necessary skills. We were able to see some of the workers there hard at work restoring the teahouses. In the pictures below you can see the scaffolding for one of the buildings being built. The second picture is the finish building when we returned the following year.
Some of the teahouses, however, are open for business. We passed by one that you can reserve in advance for events. The main teahouse in the Hamarikyu Gardens is Nakajima-no-ochaya, where visitors to the park can stop and enjoy a cup of matcha tea and traditional Japanese sweets (for an additional charge). This teahouse is accessible via a long bridge made of Japanese cypress wood that goes to the middle of the pond, where the teahouse is situated (its name literally means “island in a pond teahouse”). When you approach the teahouse, you’re greeted by an attendant in the doorway. Then, you must take off your shoes as you enter and leave them on designated shelves because the flooring is made of tatami mats (traditional Japanese flooring).
The teahouse has fantastic views of the large seawater pond, called Shiori-no-ike (Incoming Tide Pond). According to the Hamarikyu Gardens guide pamphlet, the pond is connected to Tokyo Bay with lock gates, and the ebb and flow of the tide changes the appearance of the pond. However, we weren’t at the gardens long enough to witness the change. Still, the view was fantastic, and it was a lovely, serene spot for relaxing.
At the teahouse, you can sit inside or outside. We sat inside on the tatami mat flooring. Nakajima-no-ochaya was restored in 1983. At the original teahouse (or, at least, one of the previous ones on this site), the Japanese emperor met with American President Ulysses S. Grant. The current teahouse saw British Prince William as a recent visitor in 2015. A woman came and served us each matcha green tea in what looked more like a little bowl than a cup. The tea ceremony host sets the bowl or cup down in a certain way so that those participating in the tea ceremony can appreciate the best side of the bowl. The participant then picks up the bowl and admires it. There’s quite a bit more to the ceremony, including turning the bowl around a certain way to show respect to the host (but I’m not sure I remember all the details correctly!). Along with tea, we got traditional Japanese sweets. I believe one had sweet red bean paste inside. The texture of traditional Japanese sweets is interesting. It’s kind of a grainy texture that melts in your mouth with a lightly sweet taste. We ate them with tiny wooden spears which double as knives and toothpicks.
Elsewhere in the gardens, there are duck hunting sites used before the gardens were owned by the City of Tokyo. The large canal near the entrance at the north of the park appears to feed the duck hunting ponds
All throughout the park are many fantastic viewpoints. Most of these spots are around the main pond, the Shiori-no-ike. We particularly liked the views of the teahouse from the edge of the pond.
South of the teahouse is a small hill going up to the trees along the park’s wall. From here we were treated to a lovely view to the north of the pond, teahouse, and the skyline.
East of the teahouse We also went to the top of a little hill to get a great view of the southern area of the park, the pond, and the city buildings surrounding it.
Every time we’ve visited Hamarikyu Gardens it has been a breath of fresh air in the midst of our busy trip. The lack of crowds and the beautiful, tranquil scenery allowed us to truly relax and enjoy ourselves.
Google Maps Link: Hamarikyu Gardens
