Sakura season in Tokyo usually lasts for about a week and a half. And I’m going to make the most out of it. The “full bloom” i.e. best viewing time starts on March 30 until about the end of first week of April, although some would extend to the second week.
Today (31 March), we visited Roppongi for a day of walking and stuff, and the weather was a nice 19 degrees. This is my first cherry blossom viewing EVER, so please excuse me if I squeal every now and then throughout this post.
Before we got to the cherry blossom bit (the above picture is just for me to start ooh-aah-ing), let’s talk about other festivities that are currently happening in Tokyo Midtown.
Currently, Tokyo Midtown is having its Midtown Blossom “festival” with plenty of events and activities – both cherry blossom related or not. One of the things that I was interested in checking out is the Street Museum, displaying installations, sculptures and photographs by the annual Tokyo Midtown Award Art Competition winners. Here they are…
Do check them out if you’re in the area between 18 March – 17 April 2016.
Anyways, after checking out the Street Museum, I walked straight to the park area of Tokyo Midtown. I was actually planning to visit the 21_21 Design Sight, but upon seeing the cherry blossom lined up along the park, I decided to just stare and drool at sakura for the whole day.
As I mentioned, this is the first time I’ve been in Japan during the full bloom sakura season, so the drooling bit probably wasn’t too exaggerated. I was very excited.
Here are some close-ups of the sakura looking all awesome and stuff. I’ve always thought I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the plum (ume) and cherry (sakura) blossom. However, upon closer look, I think they do look pretty distinct from each other…
So. Pretty!
You see, the thing is, my favourite colour has always been pink. So seeing lines of pink on the street with plenty of tiny cute little petals falling just made me smile!
Whether it is from street level or from up high, the sakura trees looked absolutely gorgeous! I had to squeal quietly throughout the early part of the day as the hubby was actually not with me, and squealing when you’re by yourself could be a little weird.
At about 11am, the park was pretty quiet with people walking past uttering “kireii” and taking out their phones to take photos. However, as the day went on, the park got busier and busier.
Many office workers and tourists visited the park, some bringing pretty bento boxes to eat their lunch underneath the sakura trees and some with their camera gears ready.
I was obviously in the “tourist with camera gear” category! So of course, I took as many photos as I can possibly take.
The thing is, every single turn I take and every single sakura tree I see looked so pretty that I ended up with like about 200 photos to choose from at the end of the day.
Even from the Tokyo Midtown pedestrian bridge, you could see the cherry blossom trees from both sides. So gorgeous. what a different view from my first visit to Roppongi (you gotta find that one photo where I took a similar picture to the one below).
I met up with the hubby for lunch and after we finished our meal, we walked another round around the park (I’ve done about a million rounds by that time haha), and just admired the beauty…
We then walked towards Roppongi Hills and found a little park next to TV Asahi Station with more sakura trees, a small lake (or is it a pond… wait, what’s the difference again!?), and some other green trees.
Look at how pretty the sakura trees were when combined with the greenery and a heart installation by the side of the pond/lake!
After walking through the park, we strolled past the TV Asahi building where they were setting up festival booths…
We then walked through another building to get to Roppongi Sakurazaka, located just behind Roppongi Hills.
I love love love the view from the bridge with sakura trees on both sides, almost fully bloomed. Yep, it seemed like the trees in this area had not fully bloomed to its best viewing yet. (And already it was so pretty!!! *insert more squealing*)
We walked through a decent-sized playground with plenty of kids playing around the colourful slides.
We walked down to the street level, so that we could actually walk among the cherry blossom…
It definitely felt somewhat romantic, either because it was actually romantic or because we were conditioned to think that this is a romantic thing to do (from all the Japanese animes and dramas).
What a gorgeous way to walk around Roppongi and taking in the view… And because this is not as touristy as, say, Ueno Park or Shinjuku Gyoen, you could definitely stop and take photos as often as you wish without feeling pressured to keep walking.
I highly recommend walking around Roppongi’s Tokyo Midtown and the quiet streets of Roppongi Hills’ Sakurazaka during the sakura season, if you have done the more “touristy” cherry blossom spots.