Sumida Park
Riverside cherry-lined park planted to hold flood banks together, with bridges, a playground and Skytree views.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Sumida Park in Tokyo starts with a very practical reason for its rows of cherry trees: an early-1700s scheme by the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune to use picnicking crowds to pack down flood-prone riverbanks. It follows a temple caretaker named Shinroku Yamamoto, who turned the trees' fallen leaves into a pickled sweet still sold nearby, and traces a young, tubercular poet, Masaoka Shiki, who once rented a room above that same shop. Listen for the sakuramochi shop just steps from the water as you walk the promenade.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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