Koishikawa Kōrakuen Gardens

Koishikawa Korakuen in Bunkyo is one of the last surviving Edo-period daimyo gardens in Tokyo, designated both Special Place of Scenic Beauty and Special Historic Site. It was laid out in 1629 as the garden of the Mito-Tokugawa branch's city residence, completed under Tokugawa Mitsukuni, who consulted the Confucian Ming scholar Zhu Shunshui and let Chinese motifs flow in. The Full Moon stone bridge, the replica West Lake shore from Hangzhou and the rice paddies once used to teach the young shogun all survive. Today visitors stroll around the central pond in roughly an hour, see the Tokyo Dome skyline rising behind pines and come in November for fiery maple foliage.