Tokyo: Petals Starting To Fall

A day on from Raina's report from Kyoto where the cherry blossoms were at or approaching full bloom, I was today in Tokyo again for another look at how things were progressing at three of the city's popular viewing spots.

With Tokyo now well into its peak viewing period, I was met with beautiful scenes at all three of today's sites, however with petals already beginning to fall at two of them, overall only around a couple of days remain to get close to an ideal viewing experience.

My first visit today was to Showa Memorial Park, a huge open space in the city's western suburbs known for its many different flowers including rapeseed, cosmos and tulips of many colors. Typically coming into bloom slightly later than the norm for central Tokyo, the park still had a few patches where the blossom needed a bit more time to fill out. Overall though, I found it at full bloom with ideal viewing conditions looking likely to continue to the end of this week.

Next on my list was Asukayama Park, a small hilltop park in the north of the city, with around 700 cherry blossom trees spread around a nicely landscaped space. The most advanced of today's three spots, here the blossoms were beginning to thin out a little on the branches while stronger gusts of wind were enough to send streams of petals billowing through the air.

For my final stop of the day I returned again to Ueno Park. While petals here too were just beginning to fall from cherry blossom trees lining the main avenue and the Shinobazu Pond, overall the blossoms appeared to be a day or two behind Asukayama Park and were still looking full and attractive.

Illuminations around the pond area will be held from 17:00 to 22:00 every evening until April 13.