Page 30 - (DK Eyewitness) Top 10 Travel Guide - Tokyo

28 ❯❯ Top 10 Tokyo Highlights

Koishikawa
Korakuen Garden

Established in 1629, Tokyo’s oldest surviving garden was
commissioned by Tokugawa Yorifusa, lord of the Mito branch
of the Tokugawa family. Its designer, Tokudaiji Sahei, was
aided by the Confucian scholar, Zhu Shunshui, a Chinese
refugee from the fall of the Ming dynasty. The garden was
once a recreational space for the Tokugawa clan to entertain
guests, clamber up its miniature hills, float in barges on its
pond, and stage poetry parties. It is now open to the public.

Tsuiji Walls
4
The current wall is
a reinforced concrete
imitation of the original
tsuiji plastered walls, but
moss and staining from
Tokyo’s steamy summers
have given the newer
walls a patina of age.
Symbolic Rice
5
Field
Mount Lu and Lotuses
1 Created to show the
Miniature landscapes here recall famous
hard ships faced by
places in poetry and mythology. Below this imitation peasant farmers, a rice
of Mount Lu in China (above) is a sacred lotus pond. field lies to the north of
the garden. School kids
Horai-jima
NEED TO KNOW 2 plant and harvest the crop.
Island
Kuhachiya
MAP E2 • 1-6-6 Koraku, The island at the pond’s 6
Bunkyo-ku • 3811-3015 center represents House
• www.tokyo-park.or.jp/ the Taoist paradise of Standing in the middle of
english/park Horai-jima. The idea of a a glade of red pines, this
Open 9am–5pm • Adm “heavenly isle” in a gar den thatched-roof building is
was con ceived by the modeled on an Edo-era
• Try to get to the Chinese Emperor Wu. drinking house.
garden when it opens
at 9am, before the Engetsukyo Bridge
amusement park next 3
A stroll along the winding, tree-sheltered
door gets into full paths leads to the Chinese-style Engetsukyo
swing. In the fierce (below), the “round moon bridge,” arguably the
summer months the oldest ornamental stone bridge in Tokyo.
garden is much cooler Korakuen
at this time as well.
• Kantoku-tei, a
teahouse with a room
facing onto Oigawa
River, serves omatcha
(powdered green tea) Entrance Koishikawa Korakuen
along with a traditional Garden
Japanese sweet.

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