Still the month of February and longing for the spring in Tokyo? Visit the many gardens in Tokyo sporting the Plum blossoms called “Ume” in local Japanese. Yushima Tenman-gu Shrine near Ueno Station. Yushima Tenman-gū Shrine or Yushima Tenjin is a Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Japan devoted to Tenjin, the Kami of Learning. Due to Tenjin’s frequent association with plum trees, Yushima Tenmangu maintains an extensive grove of plum trees, and holds a yearly festival called “Ume Matsuri” in February or March depending on when the trees bloom.
The access to garden is from The Chiyoda Subway Line to Yushima Station (C 13) (Exit 3), and then walk 2 min. or the Ginza Subway Line to Ueno-hirokoji Station (G 15), and then walk 5 min. The blossoms attract a lot of the local crowds and the season in 2015 is between February 8, 2015 to March 8, 2015.
The shrine is close to the University of Tokyo so many students come to the shrine to wish good results in examinations or pray to get jobs post graduation.
Just look at the number of wooden tablets hung outside the shrine wishing good luck…. Reading them is also some activity I love to do… quite interesting notes I have spotted on them…
See this one where the person has written “Wish me luck in getting a job at a company which is of my liking” !!!! Whether the candidate himself/herself is of any company’s liking, well we don’t know.. We wish best of luck anyways…
The plum blossoms here are really well laid out and there is also open-air tea ceremony if you would like to get the complete local treatment and immersion. We were happy to just watch the various Plum Ume blossoms
There is also a drooping sakura, or “shidare zakura” tree which is one of our favorite type of the spring blossoms.
There is also bonsai, “miniature” version of the Sakura flowers on sale at the shrine. At 2000 yen you can make on of these yours and have them in your living room.
The flowers are in full bloom since March 1, 2015 so there are still 7-8 days to go. Next week can be the right time for the hanami, flower watching trip.
The shrine has a lot of festivities in the Ume Matsuri festival time with a lot of shops of food and events in the vicinity. Good way to pass your time beyond the flowers
Regular amenities at the shrine include the place to wash your hands before you enter the main halls
Patting the statue brings good luck or so say and we did it for five long minutes. Hopefully 2015 is great for us… 🙂
A lot of white “haya zakura” or early sakura is also in the temple premises. Enjoy the bloom on a clear blue day as below.
One more Haya zakura at Yushima Tenjin
The white sakura is really dense at the temple and we spent significant time enjoying the blossoms and taking endless snaps and creating tons of digital asset on the SD cards…
One last view of the pink blossoms…and then we head off back home passing the Ueno neighborhood
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