Tokyo: Sakura next to the Imperial Palace

Back in Tokyo we were greeted by some sunshine. We decided to stroll through Ginza and then we walked across to the Imperial Palace area. Before we reached the gardens in the East, we came across some lovely Sakura trees.

They were in full blossom and lots of people were walking past those trees, taking pictures. It was still early, but already a few people sat on the benches and ate their lunch.

We walked past those beautiful trees, taking quite a few pictures, and went to the Imperial Palace East Gardens – but we were unlucky. It was a Friday and on Fridays the gardens are closed to the public.

So we had to come again the next day, our last day on Saturday. I’ll post more about the gardens shortly, but on Saturday, we walked passed the cherry trees again. It was not as nice and sunny anymore, but still nice enough to take some pictures.

So without any picnic, but with lots of cherry blossoms, we sat on the benches and enjoyed our last days in Tokyo. The Sakura poem by Paul Conneally (source: here) really sums up what I was thinking while sitting on the bench under these beautiful cherry blossom trees:

park bench take-away
the sky and cherry blossoms
in a cup of tea
— Paul Conneally