The people of Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens

Hey everybody,

Today I decided to take advantage of a long lunch break to check out what might be my last opportunity to see the vaunted, famous fall leaves here in Japan.  Fortunately, I happen to work very near Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens--one of the few locations in Japan that's managed to earn dedication as both a "Special Historic Site" and a "Special Place of Scenic Beauty" (Japanese love certifying things, and it's hard to tell just how important something is based only on that.  But considering that the list of places that have earned both distinctions is short and filled with things like Hama Rikyu Gardens and Kinkakuji I think it's worthy of respect)

Originally built by one of the early Tokugawa Shoguns in the early 1600s, the gardens has been expanded and preserved over the last 400 years.  Carefully tended trees and terraced paths, with plantlife arrayed to take advantage of the changing seasons, abound for the roughly 20 acres of the park.  Honestly, at 300 yen it's a steal of a way to spend at least an hour wandering around

I overheard someone saying that she was annoyed because there were too many people.  I sympathized with her for a second, until I realized that she was completely wrong.  Especially to me, wanting people out of the way so you can get a perfect photograph is a) futile, in that there are dozens of people wandering these gardens, b) pointless, as my camera is not nearly good enough to capture all of the amazing sights and colors, but most importantly c) myopic, in that it misses part of the whole point of the garden.  Let me explain:

See, as remarkable as the beauty of this garden is, the most remarkable part is that it exists at all.  Economists were fond of saying that, through much of the 80s and 90s, that the land just within Tokyo city limits was worth more than the entire State of California.  And so why then, did 20 acres of prime real estate in the middle of Central Tokyo, get left as garden?  And not just Koishikawa, there are dozens of gardens, some even larger (Ueno Park, the Imperial Palace, Hama Rikyu)

It's because people are willing to value natural beauty here.  Every day, dozens probably hundreds of people come here to take pictures, stroll around, even just eat their lunch.  That's pretty spectacular, don't you think?  That the desire to have something pretty to look at in the center of the city is more valuable than the uncountable amount of money that could be made developing the land

And I'm not saying this is solely a Japanese things, hardly.  New York's Central Park has some absolutely gorgeous sections.  And Volunteer Park in Seattle, to name one of many, is sitting on many millions of dollars worth of land.  The value of natural beauty is not a Japanese but a very human thing.  But it does seem very, very Japanese to take this land and truly preserve it as something spectacular

Everyone else was taking pictures of the beautiful garden.  I decided to try my hand at taking pictures of people, people enjoying the beautiful garden

All in all, a pretty spectacular way to spend 300 yen on a sunny autumn midmorning.  I'm very glad that I'm not the only person that thinks that way.  There are a lot of people that agree with me.  And spending lunctime somewhere like that makes it a lot easier to go back to something like this, literally two blocks away from the front gate:

Next time, I'll bring my lunch as well

Noah out