Toyama Park
Toyama Park is located in Shinjuku. Its best known feature is Mount Hakone: At 44.6m, it is the highest mountain inside the Yamanote Line. It also has lots of flowers and a few sport grounds.
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Hanazono Shrine Festival
Hanazono Jinja (花園神社) is a shinto shrine in Shinjuku, right next to Kabukicho. It holds its annual festival in May. As usual in Japanese festivals, there are many food and game stalls on the grounds of the shrine, while the mikoshi are paraded around the neighbourhood.
Walk along the Sumida River (Part 3): Arakawa City
This is where the Sumida River borders both Arakawa City (on the south side) and Adachi City (north). It is a bit out of the way but it is a nice and quiet walk.
Walk along the Sumida River (Part 2): From Asakusa to Tsukiji
A nice thing to do after visiting Asakusa and Tokyo Skytree is to walk south along the Sumida River. It is possible to go all the way to Tokyo Bay on foot (for example, ending at Harumi Passenger Ship Terminal). In this post, I stopped at Tsukiji, after making a detour by Tsukishima Island, where the Sumida River forks into 2 channels before reaching Tokyo Bay.
Walk along the Sumida River (Part 1): From Asakusa to Minami-Senju
The Sumida River (隅田川; Sumida-gawa) is a river in eastern Tokyo that starts at the Iwabuchi Sluice Gate in Kita and flows into Tokyo Bay. There is a walkway along its bank almost everywhere along the way. Here are photos of the walk starting from Asakusa and going north to Minami-Senju, in Arakawa City.
Above, Sumida River from the Tokyo Skytree observatory.
Lake Okutama / Ogouchi Dam in the rain
After completing the Otama Walking Trail, I took the bus to Lake Okutama. My goal was to walk the Ikoi trail to the floating bridge but the path was closed for repair. It had also started to rain very hard on the way there so I cut the visit short.
Otama Walking Trail: Hike from Kori to Okutama
The Otama Walking Trail is a nice and easy 8km trail in Okutama, in western Tokyo. It follows the valley formed by the Tama River from Kori station to Okutama station. I had already followed the section of the trail in Hatonosu Valley last autumn but I came back for the whole trail in spring. It took me about 3.5 hours to reach Okutama.
University of Tokyo (Todai)
The University of Tokyo (東京大学; Tokyo daigaku), often abbreviated as Todai (東大), is the most prestigious university in Japan. Its main campus is in Hongo (Bunkyo). As far as I can tell, although there are guards at the gates, it can be entered pretty much freely.
Hike to Mount Nyoho in Nikko
In May, I went back once more to Nikko. This time, I climbed Mount Nyoho (女峰山), the sister peak to the better-known (and barely higher) Mount Nantai (男体山). At 2483m, it was the highest point during my year in Japan. This is the trail direction I followed (except I started at the Futarasan Shrine).