Aoyama Cemetery

Aoyama Cemetery in the Minami-Aoyama district of Tokyo's Minato ward opened in 1874 as one of the first municipal cemeteries of the Meiji era – Japan was opening up and needed non-religiously administered burial grounds for a modernising capital. Across 26 hectares lie politicians, novelists, generals, and Hachiko, the dog whose loyalty at Shibuya station made him world-famous. The older foreign section holds late 19th-century diplomats and teachers, including several Germans who helped the Meiji government modernise the country. But the cemetery is best known for its cherry blossoms: in late March its main avenue becomes a pink-white tunnel where Tokyoites hold hanami picnics. Between the skyscrapers of Roppongi and Aoyama, it is a startlingly quiet pocket of the city.