Chidorigafuchi
年2002月04日03
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This year the sakara blossoms (cherry blossoms) came out early and as we had a
holiday on March 21st my classmates and I decide to go Hanami
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Most of my classmates were not in Japan last spring so this was their
first time to see Hanami. I ran out and got a magazine with
recommendations for places to go and we ended up checking out taking a
pretty long path from Tokyo Station to Kudanshita Station. Probably
a 2 to 3 mile walk.
We were a little worried because the cherry blossoms were very early
this year but just how early we were not sure so we wondered if we'd get
to see any blossoms. We got all assembled with one of our party
being 30 minutes late and headed out.
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Our first stop was the front of the Imperial Castle near Tokyo Station
which we were then supposed to follow the moat around clockwise until we
got to Chidorigafuchi. Chee-doe-ree-ga-foo-chee
When we arrived at the first "green" park like area we were
pretty disappointed. There was not a sakura tree in site that was
blooming.
After a little walking we found a one or two here or there but it was
still disappointing
We arrived at a Hibiya park which according to our map should have
quite a few sakara trees. It did have a few and they were blooming
but they were around a dry dirt playground and as we had brought picnic
lunches we wanted a nicer place to sit so we keep to our map and continued
around the Imperial grounds.
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After that we walked by Sakuradamon which I had passed several times on
the subway but I had never gotten off the subway at that station to see
where I was. It is one of the old gates into the Imperial
grounds. Specifically it's the Cherry Field Gate and as such there
were a few beautiful sakura trees near the gate so we stopped to take some
pictures.
We ended up eating lunch in front of the Japanese capital building and
joked we should invite Prime Minister Koizumi to join us.
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There's a small garden/park in front of the capital building and so we
sat on some stairs in the garden and pigged out. Son-san is in a
homestay program meaning that she is living with a Japanese family while
studying Japanese and her homestay mother made us a feast!
We had all brought a little of our own food too and so we got
stuffed. There were 6 of us but we easily had enough food for 12
people.
Unfortunately the wind was blowing that day and about half way through
lunch a big gust of wind blew sand all over the food.  At least
we were already stuffed.
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After lunch we continued on and finally got to Chidorigafuchi.
It's a part of the moat around the Imperial grounds with sakura trees
lining both shores and all the trees were in full bloom or mankai
("man" rhythms with pawn. "kai" rhythms with pie)
It was pretty amazing. Even the statues covered in bird droppings
almost matched the beautiful trees. Okay, not quite 
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That area was packed. On one side of the river there are two
paths and people were shuffling along like a slow traffic jam on both
sides. One side going one way, the other side going the opposite
way.
You could even rent row boats although the line to rent looked like it
would be at least 1 to 2 hours to wait so we decided to pass on that.
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There were also lights setup all long the river for night viewing or in
Japanese "yuuzakura"
We wanted to come back and see them at night and 3 of us managed to
make it back only to find out they were not going to turn on the lights
until the next day. I guess that's to be expected from a government
organized event. Even though Thursday was a holiday and even though
the blossoms were in full bloom and zillions of people were there and
about 1 out of 3 was asking the guard when the lights were going to come
on nobody had the authority to turn on the dang lights!
About 4 days later I went back to check it out. Pretty awesome at
night too though without a tripod almost none of my pictures came out.
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