Walking in Hama-rikyu in the shadow of a shogun....
Monday…..
I rather enjoyed a restful Sunday yesterday, although, perhaps if the truth be known, it was mentally restful, physically, I ended up walking just under six miles!
I arose early and after a shower and a quick breakfast, I ambled across the bridge and down Shin-Ohashi Dori Avenue towards Nihonbashi, Hatchobori and beyond. It wasn’t long before I found myself in the underground shopping mall around Tokyo Station, which is always a favourite place for me. After a short while walking down and up and along and round, I went up to the topside and took a seat under a tree at Station Square at a quarter after eleven.
I wasn’t there to just people watch, which I do love doing, I had planned to take a fuel cell bus from JR East – the rail company. It is powered by hydrogen and operates a shuttle service down to Shimbashi Station, WATERS Takeshiba, Hinode Pier, and sometimes it goes back to Tokyo Station via Tokyo Tower. I’d planned to get off at the waterfront, so I could visit Hamarikyu Gardens, which I’d walked past on my first trip to Japan when I'd accidentally missed the entrance!
The bus was almost disappointing, for it is rather like riding an ordinary bus, except it is a little quieter and not anything special on the inside
A view towards Hama-rikyu Gardens.
The Hama-rikyu Gardens are, as their sign and English guide proudly proclaims, a ‘Special Place of Scenic Beauty and Special Historic Site’. It is the family garden of the Tokugawa Shogun as well as the outer fort for the Edo castle. The gardens have been a relaxing place to many Shoguns over time, and after the Meiji restoration, it became a detached palace of the Imperial Family. Earthquakes and bombings in war destroyed or damaged many buildings and trees, and thus, some of the views from bygone days have been lost. The Imperial Family donated the gardens to Tokyo City in November 1945, and following some restoration, it opened to the public in April 1946.
Today's garden is almost the same as it was back in the days of Ienari, the 11th Tokugawa Shogun.
May is perhaps the worst month to visit the gardens as there is very little flowering, budding or changing colour and cascading down. Yet, I still found my visit beneficial and well worth the 300 yen entrance fee. There is a delight in walking paths, passing trees and simply enjoying ‘being’ in places that have, since at least 1654, witnessed the weight of human feet. Sure, there may be modern gravel in places underfoot, whilst fences built in the 1990s halt entrance to areas of conservation, yet it is mostly as it was during the life of the 11th Shogun.
As the sun shone down from a deep blue, unabashed sky, my mind wandered from the here and now to a time of then and there, the time of the Shogunate. Although it really isn’t a case of ‘then and there', Shoguns existed from the Heian Period (794-1185) until 1868, which is quite a long period of time, but the sensation was just the same. I gazed inward, both literally and metaphorically and contemplated a life in these gardens at the time of the 11th Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Ienari. He took up office in April 1787 and went on until May 1837, the longest run of any shogun in Japan's history and was quite a character. It is said that not only did he have a wife, but he also had many concubines; he also kept a harem of 900 women and may have fathered more than 75 children during his lifetime. He had a passion for parties and err, passion, of that there seems little doubt, but his reputation for decadence and debauchery is seen by many as the beginning of the end of the power of Tokugawa and the shogunate. The only reason I was thinking of Ienari is that the gardens now look almost exactly as they did in his time, and here, all these years later, I’m walking in his shadow, touching trees that his hands may have brushed, sitting in his garden, drinking fizzy pop where he drank tea! We may have lived thoroughly different lives with nearly 200 years between us, yet for a mere fraction of time, we both inhabited the same place and enjoyed life in a man-made nature!
Walking homeward, I wondered a multitude of things, not least the juxtaposition of arriving at the historic gardens in one of the most modern forms of transport – a hydrogen-powered bus, and leaving on the oldest – my own two feet. Of course, you know me, it wasn’t long before thoughts rapidly turned to food and I planned what to have for dinner!
The gardens are relatively unchanged since the time of the 11th Tokugawa Shogun. Whilst the background has changed and grown with the passing of the years, the foreground is little altered
Shioiri - no - ike, the tidal pool that is a key feature of the Hama - rikyu Gardens
I feel like a forage in the undergrowth
The Nakajima Tea House in the middle of Shioiri-no-ike.
Reflections of the Left Wing of Tokyo Twin Park, MinebeaMitsumi Office and The Conrad hotel in the duck pond.
Unchanged for hundreds of years......except it changes every day
One of the many pathways in the gardens to walk and wonder!
A modern take on a traditional fence
The posh and plush Conrad Hotel faces me over the park.
WATERS Takeshiba just over there, where I took the first photo from!
Now that is a nice little boat!
The view from Hama-rikyu Gardens to the Rainbow Bridge.
It's a bit zoomed in, but still far away!
View from Hama-rikyu Gardens, Tokyo, with the Tsukiji-Ohashi Bridge on the left.
