Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Omoide Yokocho – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

Another morning in the frenzied megalopolis of Tokyo. Another gorgeous, peaceful park, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, to be more specific.

After the park, or garden, if you will, I took in something completely different, Omoide Yokocho. But I’ll get to that anon, give or take an anon.

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

You might think of Tokyo as an immense, densely packed city. And it is that. But it also has its share of large, beautiful parks to provide respite from the urban storm.

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden is such a park. That’s where I went after breakfast this Sunday morning. The park is closed on Mondays, and I’ll be leaving Tokyo this coming Tuesday. I’ll be back for half a day before catching my return flight. But that’ll be a Monday too. So it was today or never for Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.

Weighing in at about 144 acres (58.3 hectares), Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden is quite large. But size isn’t everything. Fortunately, it’s also beautiful and peaceful.

Those hectares are filled with trees, bushes, lawns, and flowers, along with some exceedingly charming ponds.

(“Ponds,” I imagine one reader thinking. “I wonder if there were fish.” There were indeed. I’ve included a picture of some fish in a pond. You’re welcome for all the fish.)

The Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden is divided into three sections: A traditional Japanese garden, a formal French garden, and an English meadow. There are also a couple of restaurants and some other structures. One of those other structures is a traditional Chinese building donated by the Japanese residents of Taiwan. It overlooks one of the ponds.

I read somewhere that thanks to Tokyo’s reasonably clement climate, there’s always at least something in bloom in the garden, no matter what the month. Today, there were several blooming roses, along with a few flowers I didn’t recognize. It’s not surprising that I didn’t recognize them because there are few flowers that I can readily identify. Roses are one of them, especially when they are labelled as such.

In a pinch, I could probably recognize daisies as well, but I didn’t see any there, at least, not any labelled daisies.

There was a chrysanthemum exhibition on at the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden when I was there. I know what you are thinking. “But, Joel, chrysanthemums weren’t one of the flower species you said you could identify. Are you sure they were chrysanthemums?”

Well, yes, I’m sure. At least I’m fairly confident. But can we ever be entirely certain of anything? Life itself could be but an illusion.

However, I had a couple of strong clues as to the chrysanthemumness, to coin a word, of the flowers. My first clue was the signs in Japanese and English scattered at various spots in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, pointing the way to the, as they put it, “Chrysanthemum Exhibition.”

The second clue was the signs at each exhibit naming the chrysanthemum variety and some other information about it, such as how the chrysanthemums were trained to present the effect on display.

Between those two reinforcing clues, I think I can confidently say they were indeed chrysanthemums. Then again, the garden could have lied about that. Maybe they were, instead, varieties of the rare whatzit plant and, for some cruel reason, the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden chose to deceive visitors. Or perhaps the Japanese on the sign did name the whatzit plant correctly, but they hate foreigners and wanted to deceive people who speak English, but not Japanese. I doubt that’s what it was, but you never know.

(If you’ve never heard of the whatzit plant, Google it. Please let me know if you find anything.)

I didn’t count, but I think there were about a half-dozen different chrysanthemum displays. Each was in a small structure with a roof and three walls. The front of each structure was open. The plants mostly filled the structure. Visitors admired them from in front, looking in. Unless, of course, they didn’t admire them, but, rather, say, hated them. In that case, they probably moved along quickly and, at most, gave them a passing glance, if even that. But never mind that.

Some of the chrysanthemums were trained rather incredibly. They, on command, rolled over, sat, and played dead.

No, that’s not true. But they did look impressive. One exhibit showed a series of different chrysanthemums, each in a separate pot, and each of which formed a large dome of chrysanthemum blooms. The sign accompanying that exhibit said, “It takes a year for one root division to produce hundreds of flowers in a dome shape by unique technique of pinching and training.”

What the sign didn’t say is that there was a dome-shaped metal frame for the branches of the plant to be attached to. Be that as it may, the people who cultivated them still had to coax out all of those blooms on branches that could be formed into a dome. So, that was impressive.

But enough about the chrysanthemums. Back to the park in general. Have I said it is beautiful? (*rereads the preceding paragraphs*) Um, yup. I did say that.

Okay. But did I say, it’s peaceful? (*rereads the preceding paragraphs*) Damn, yes. I did say that too.

So, what more can I say about Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden?

Come on, people. That wasn’t a rhetorical question. What more can I say about Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden? I feel its beauty and calming quality deserve a lot more praise, but I’m at a loss for words.

It serves me right. I should have sprung for the super-deluxe literary license. It probably comes with a lot more words. Those discount licenses are worthless. You get what you pay for, I guess.

Let’s move on.

Omoide Yokocho

I told you in the introduction of this post that I visited something completely different after Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. That something different was Omoide Yokocho.

My walking tour app tells me that Omoide Yokocho is referred to in English by either of two different names. When you hear that, you might think that the two names use synonyms or, maybe, one is a derivative of the other. Perhaps, for example, Sweet Street and Sugar Street. Not so.

Omoide Yokocho is referred to as either Piss Alley or Memory Lane. Memories of pissing, maybe.

When I put “Omoide Yokocho” into Google Translate, it translates it from Japanese to English as “Memories Yokocho.” I was surprised it was able to translate it at all because “Omoide Yokocho” is obviously a transliteration. Those definitely aren’t Japanese characters. But let’s go with Memory Lane, rather than Piss Lane, shall we?

Omoide Yokocho is a couple of parallel, narrow lanes, not much more than wide enough for two people to walk through them side by side. I would call the lanes gritty and meagre, but that might make them sound more upscale than they are.

One of the lanes is beside the railway tracks with a tall corrugated metal wall separating it from the tracks. On the other side of that lane are tiny, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, mostly selling yakatori, skewered grilled meat. The parallel lane has similar tiny, hold-in-the-wall restaurants lining both sides of it.

I know that probably sounds awful, but if you can find streets with more character, let me know. I don’t think they exist.

I was in Omoide Yokocho around lunchtime, but I didn’t eat there. I was in Omoide Yokocho when I was in Tokyo about seven years ago, and I ate food there then. It was likely the only meal I had in Japan on that trip that I didn’t enjoy. I probably just made a bad choice as to the restaurant that time, but I didn’t want to repeat the experience. Instead, I had lunch at a nearby restaurant outside of Omoide Yokocho.

Okay. I admit it. I’m not a brave person.