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Destination: Shinjuku Gyoen Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Map → http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/tokyo/shinjuku.html
Date: May, 2010
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When you overlook the whole city of Tokyo from the observation deck of Tokyo Tower, what do think your eyes catch? The answer is – tons of buildings and houses with little green. The views are not so beautiful, no matter how tall a building you go up is.
The bottom line is that there are too many people gathering in this city. Its population is close to 13 million. If you include the whole Tokyo metropolitan area, the number of people exceeds 35 million which is the highest figures in the world.
People have difficulty in relaxing themselves in such an intense urban environment. Your tension or stress is heated up as the daily life goes by. You somehow want to relieve them in an easy way. everybody needs an oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle. So, Shinjuku Gyoen Park definitely functions as a spot to heal your stressful feeling.
Shinjuku is probably the busiest town in Tokyo with a mixture of various aspects. The diversity covers business offices in the skyscraper district, numerous shops and department stores, restaurants & bars, movie theaters, hotels,,, even sex-related businesses out there..
The passengers using Shinjuku Station count over 3.5 million a day (which is another unpleasant world record of this city). But Shinjuku Gyoen, though its official name is “Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden”, is just stone’s throw away from the station.
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| Shinjuku Gyoen Park |
Shinjuku Gyoen was originally constructed as a garden of a Samurai governor in centuries past and transformed its form to an agricultural experimental field after the new Japanese government stated importing advanced technologies from the western countries. It was finally opened to the public in 1949. Since then, the park has been popular for its tranquility in contrast with the lively bustling environment outside of the park.
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| The guy in a white shirt in front of me is a park design professor at college. He explained the history of development of this urban oasis. |
On a sunny day of May, we picnicked at Shinjuku Gyoen. This park would be probably the best park in Tokyo to have such a laid-back activity. You have to pay JPY200 as the admission fee to get into the park, most of the public park in Tokyo are free of charge though. But thanks to this tiny charge, the park is well protected from nasty guys coming in and you can avoid the heavy crowed inside.
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| Picnic gals |
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| Picnic guys. The guy holding a glass is a tree doctor who used to live in Nigeria for a couple of years. He told us a funny story about baobab trees in Africa, According to him, baobab trees rape human-beings and that sometimes make the headlines on the media. Again only according to him. |
In addition, drinking any booze is prohibited inside the park (you can sneak in with them as long as the security guards don’t check into your belongings). That is another reason why this park is free from major vandalism and holds the peaceful atmosphere.
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| A flower garden of the park |
The inside of the park is well maintained and preserves the neat condition of the beautiful lawn areas, traditional Japanese gardens, and flower gardens. If you like gardening (like my wife), Shinjuku Gyoen can give you a lot of joy and don’t get you bored.
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| A flower garden of the park |
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| Ladies at a flower garden |
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| @ a Japanese garden area. |
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| A lawn area of the park: There are several grass fields which are well maintained in the park. But no BBQ nor any sporting activity which damages the ground, like soccer or baseball, is allowed. Golf,,, definitely not |
Except the cherry blossom season, you don’t see a flood of visitors into the park even on weekends. Especially for families with little kids, this park might be a perfect place to hang out because of the safer environment than other parks in Tokyo. If a good day-off plan doesn’t come up to your mind next time, just dropping in at Shinjuku Gyoen. It gives your great pleasure with few expenses.
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| Kids between trees. No worries, trees of Shinjuku Gyoen don't attack you. |
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Traveling Tips in Shinjuku
- Getting there by:
Bus; Tokyo City Bus
- To get around the Shinjuku area:
No worries about the transportation in central Tokyo. You can get anywhere by using whatever you want. Probably moving by a car would be the worst choice in the downtown area, because the heavy traffic jam and scarcity of parking lots causes you a big headache.
- Accommodation in Tokyo:
The accommodation in Tokyo is usually considered as one of the most expensive costs in the world. Yes, it’s definitely true. You gotta be ready for that, ONLY IF you want to stay at such a high-grade hotel.
But there are actually a lot of decent hotels setting up the reasonable rates around JPY 5,000 – 6,000 per night. Even the luxury hotels occasionally give you a huge discount, if you book online in advance. Don’t get overwhelmed by the stereotype information provided by the guidebooks or media on Japan. Doing your research homework will be rewarded to find affordable one.
- Affordable Hotels in Tokyo:
Hotels called “Business Hotels” usually considered as budget hotels in Japan. They are similar to the US chain hotels such as Quality Inn, Travelodge, Best Western, etc, in terms of the quality of services and amenities provided. The below ones are quite popular chain business hotels.
If you look for more backpacker friendly accommodation, “Guest Houses” are the best. Guest Houses act like youth hostels in Tokyo (The popularity of youth hostels in Japan is way low. I’ve never seen anybody who has stayed at a youth hostel within this country). They are good place to get to know new people from all over the world. The below ones are very famous guest houses.
More business hotels → (http://www.jalan.net/biz/ <Japanese> )
- Travel Expenses:
Only JPY 200 is needed as the admission fee to access to the park. Additional JPY1,000 is much enough to get some stuff for your picnic.
- Local Tourist Information Center:
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