The Rikugien Garden is one of the beautiful, traditional Japanese gardens in Tokyo. And every mid-November, many people have visited the location for its autumn illumination. But unfortunately, due to the novel coronavirus infections, this year’s evening illumination event has been canceled.
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 Rikugien 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.
And for many years, from mid-November to the first week of December, there would be an illumination event.
As for access to the park, Rikugien Graden will introduce a numbered ticket reservation system starting on November 11th to December 13th.
For more information, please click here.
