Sankeien (Sankei Garden)

The last leg of our Tokyo (and surrounding areas) tour with A&W was Yokohama. We spent the whole of today around Yokohama, beginning with a visit to Sankei Garden (Sankeien).

I never heard of Sankeien until yesterday night when A&W mentioned that they wanted to see it during our Yokohama trip today. They found out about it from japan-guide.com, which lists Sankeien as one of the top attractions in Yokohama.

To get there, we took the train from Yokohama to Negishi (via the JR Negishi line). Then we took a bus from Negishi to Honmoku and then walked to Sankeien from the bus stop (5-10-minute leisurely walk).

walking through a quiet neighborhood to get to Sankeien

map of the garden

the main pond

a duck by the main pond! :)

Yatsuhashi bridge

Sankeien-Tenmangu

Kanshinbashi bridge
(and the Three-Storied Pagoda from afar - the oldest pagoda in the Kanto region)

Main Hall of Old Tomyoji

Taishunken

Buddhist Sanctum of Old Tokeiji

Yokobuean
"The Yokobuean is a country-style tea arbor and it is so named because in this arbor, there was a statue of Yokobue, a famous heroine of a famous love story."

image of priestess enshrined in Yokobuean

Hatsunejaya
Text on the left reads: "The Nobel prize winning Indian poet Tagor, famous Japanese literary Ryunosuke Akutagawa and many others have visited this arbor. In the autumn of 1915, Akutagawa composed the haiku poem on his impressions when he enjoyed tea in the arbor."

Hatsunejaya

the Three-Storied Pagoda of Old Tomjoji
"This pagoda was moved to the garden in 1914 from the Tomyoji Temple in Kamo Village, Soraku District in Kyoto. Tomyoji is a temple which was built under the Emperor Shomu in 735. Surveys indicate that this pagoda was built (in the) Muromachi period because of its style. It is the oldest pagoda in the Kanto region."

Syusse Kannon

I actually misplaced my copy of garden's brochure/guide map, but was happy to find out that a downloadable .pdf version was available online (in English, here), which helped me identify the different structures in the garden.

There wasn't too much to see in Sankeien, and we didn't go around the whole area as we had time constraints. However, I would still like to come back here during hanami season. The park is home to a lot of cherry & plum trees -- would be lovely to see the flowers in bloom, in a clean & tranquil setting like Sankei Garden.