Boats & sakura at Chidorigafuchi park, the most romantic cherry blossom location in Tokyo

Sakura season in Tokyo

The cherry trees may be green now in Tokyo (hence no flowers) but I’m not still ready to let the season go away, so here we are, with probably one of the most romantic locations in Tokyo during the hanami, the Chidorigafuchi park.

Grab a shawl, because in this post it’s still chilly spring, add a pink flower to your hair and ride with us!

Our love for row boats is not a secret, and considering that lakes with boats in Japan are specially lovely with its swans and cute colors, it was the easiest choice to include this one in our plans. We even took a boat in Japan during our last visit (check it out here), which took place during the autumn season, so spring seemed a better fit for a boat ride.

These boats are very popular during the sakura season, thus we followed the advice of getting here first thing in the morning, before the opening time. We arrived at 8:00 sharp to the park (opening time was 9:00), walked to the boating house and had breakfast in the park while waiting in line. We were finally the 4th boat, early birds paids off! Not only because we had no problem at all finding and selecting the boat we wanted, but also because we were able to see the lake with all the boats beautifully parked and no one in sight.

There are three types of boats in this lake, this pattern is followed in almost every other lake in Japan: swans, pedal boats (with a wheel to control) and finally the classic & simple boats in three colors, blue, red and yellow. This time we took the classic boats because Dani was in the mood of rowing – only 1 rower assigned, and no changes during the ride are allowed – and I thought it would be nicer to not have a roof, since you are able to be just actually be under the sakura trees.

Sassy boat driver alert, cute!

Look how lovely it is the view under a sakura tree!

It looks so beautiful! Even if it wasn’t still in full bloom. Look here for instance some of the flower bulbs that are still closed.

Channeling my inner K-pop idol, ha! Have you watched the Netflix show Romance is a new book? It was my guilty pleasure on the weeks before this travel, the main character in the show usually does this “heart” sign with his fingers to her love interest and it was too cute to resist.

When we got to shore the line was very long and quite lot of people were already walking down the park walking area. The amount of people was growing every minute and at the end, they even restricted to only one way for each direction with park rangers with PA systems directing the pedestrians. If you want to witness the sakura madness, go to our Instagram, in the “Tokyo-I” featured stories.

Aging goals: converse, jeans and smiling to strangers!

Blouse – Miss Patina
Skirt – c/o Compañia Fantástica
Headband – Andrea Viêntëc

Pink jacket – Mango
Disney birds patch – Mouse Sew House
Mary Poppins patch – La Barbuda
Cat patch – Everyday Olive

First sakura flowers falling to the floor. Every time some thoughtless person moved a branch to take a picture with the flowers touching their face it got on my nerves, I would never touch the flowers and do something that could hurt the trees or the flowers to take a picture.

Have you visited this lake before? I definitely recommend it to visit heaps, however, I would also strongly suggest to come here by 8:00, just like we did, it can change completely your thoughts on the place when you are able to visit it first without crowds.

It was a little confusing at first to know which train station was the best to go to the boating house, so here’s what we did:

• Metro station: Hanzomon

• Walk towards the park – go to Uchibori dori, once in the park walking lane follow the “boats” signal ;)
• Leave the park by the north entrance, metro station: Kudanshita

Which is your favorite sakura location in Tokyo? We visited Chidorigafuchi, Yanaka cemetery, Nakameguro & Yoyogi park. Should we make a sakura guide?