The Rikugi-en Gardens is one of the beautiful traditional Japanese gardens in Tokyo.
Rikugi, which means “Garden of the Six Principles of Poetry”, while the “en” means park consisting of a small pond, trees and a hill.
The construction of Rikugi-en was around 1695-1702 and was headed by Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu serving the fifth Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and is a typical garden that was popular during the Edo period.
Unfortunately, after the death of Yangisawa, the park was neglected until Mitsubishi founder, Iwasaki Yataro bought the garden in 1878 and had it restored. And in 1938, the garden was donated to the Tokyo City government and was designated a special place of scenic beauty (tokubetsu meisho) by the Japanese government in 1953.
Unlike other parks in Tokyo which are open to the public 24/7 (and are places that you would see homeless and trash left over the following morning), Rikugi-en has a wall all around it and to get into the park, you have to enter through an entrance and there are no parking lots as residential areas are around it.
So, if you want to see the park, it’s only open between 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. But during a nearly three week period, the gardens are open up partly at night to 8:00 p.m. for people to enjoy the illumination called “Rikugi-en Gardens -Koyo to Damyo Teien no Light Up-“ (Rikugi-en Gardens -Light up of Autumn Leaves and Daimyo Garden-). And it truly is a sight to behold.
The place is great to see the autumn leaves and you can see the trees during this time in vermilion and golden color. And the reflections on the surface of the water is also breathtaking. For photographers, I did see people bring tripods and please note, there is not much light, so if you have a camera that can shoot at a higher ISO, it should be fine.
As mentioned, if you go during the day, you have better access to the park. If you go at night for the illumination (starting at 4:30 p.m.), you are limited to a certain path to ensure everyone’s safety.
For 2018, this marks the 18th annual light-up event. The fact it’s open through 8:00 p.m. is great because before, I believe it closed at 7:00 p.m., so you have to ensure that you are good on time!
For event information, please click here.
