PHOTO SPOT GUIDE
Kawazu Cherries on the Kyu-Nakagawa — An Early Spring Tower in the Water Mirror
The Kyu-Nakagawa runs north to south through the middle of Tokyo's old downtown. In February, deep-pink Kawazu cherries bloom along its bank. On a morning when the wind has dropped and the current looks as though it has stopped, the blossom and — on a clear day — the Skytree are reproduced exactly on the surface of the water. Sky, blossom and tower, spreading both upward and downward.
Spring above and spring below
After photographing the Kawazu cherries and the Skytree at Tobu Bridge in Oshiage, I carried on a little downstream to the Kyu-Nakagawa. The water here is wide, and quiet. In the moment when the wind drops and the current appears to stop, the river becomes a mirror outright. Deep-pink clusters of blossom and, on a clear day, the silver tower, double themselves above and below. Standing in a scene where the sky, the blossom and the tower all come in pairs, you lose track for a second of which one is real.
An affiliated body of Edogawa Ward describes this waterside as an outstanding cherry blossom spot for the way buildings and trees are reflected in the water. The moment I saw it turn to a mirror happened to be a morning when the wind had dropped. It does not happen every time. That is exactly why those few minutes when the surface came to a complete stop have stayed with me.
Coming off a night shift, and time that will not stop
I have stood at this waterside straight off an emergency night shift, with a head that had not yet slept. Time that had been counting out seconds all night came loose the moment I reached the river. Only the sound of the moving water seemed to carry that unstoppable time gently away. The February sky is still winter, and that is precisely why the colour of the flowers looks deeper than usual. While the whole city is still waiting for spring, here alone it has already arrived — and that faintly guilty happiness is, I think, what draws people back to this riverbank every year.
I walk this place in hydrangea season too. White Annabelles crowd the foot of Fureai Bridge, and beyond them, again, the tower. The same waterside shows a completely different face in each season. That is why I keep coming back.
For the few minutes the water stood still,
blossom and tower came in twos.
Planning your visit — season
An early-flowering cherry, so the trick is to move earlier than the calendar tells you.
Edogawa Ward's guidance is that the Kawazu cherries on the Kyu-Nakagawa begin to flower around the beginning of February each year and are at their best from around the end of February to the middle of March. The ward publishes the flowering and peak conditions annually, and depending on the year first flowering has been confirmed as early as late January or as late as mid-February. Blooming shifts from year to year, so please check the latest conditions in Edogawa Ward's official information.
One thing worth stating plainly, about numbers. Edogawa Ward's official figure for the Kawazu cherries planted on the bank of the Kyu-Nakagawa is thirty-six trees. Along the Kyu-Nakagawa as a whole there are about two hundred and eighty cherry trees of five varieties: Kawazu cherry, along with Somei-yoshino, Okanzakura, weeping cherry and Oshima cherry. After the Kawazu cherries are over, the Okanzakura and then the Somei-yoshino come into their own in turn, so spring on this riverbank runs on for a good while.
Getting there
Edogawa Ward gives thirteen minutes on foot from Hirai Station on the JR Sobu Line to the Kawazu cherries on the Kyu-Nakagawa riverbank, and fifteen minutes from the south exit of Hirai Station to Fureai Bridge. You can also reach the water from Higashi-ojima Station on the Toei Shinjuku Line; the ward's cherry blossom guide gives one minute on foot from the station's Komatsugawa exit. If you need parking, there is a car park at the Tokyo Metropolitan Ojima-Komatsugawa Park (ordinary car 400 yen for up to one hour, then 200 yen per 30 minutes, with a cap of 1,600 yen for twelve hours from entry).
Fureai Bridge is a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists linking Hirai 3-chome in Edogawa Ward with Kameido 9-chome in Koto Ward. It was named in the hope that residents of the two wards would cross it to meet and rest together. At night it is lit with LEDs, in eight colour patterns that change with the season.
On drones: in metropolitan parks, Ojima-Komatsugawa Park included, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Construction prohibits flying drones and radio-controlled aircraft. On the river side the same bureau advises refraining from flight when there are people about, and across much of Tokyo permission under the Civil Aeronautics Act is required as well. Please assume aerial photography is not possible.
Tips for photographers
Waiting on a still morning for the instant the water becomes a mirror is the classic approach here. Lower the camera until it is almost skimming the surface and the area of reflection grows, which makes a vertically symmetrical composition much easier. The slope of the riverbank is slippery, though, so do watch your footing.
The Kawazu cherry is a deep-coloured flower, and it loses the gradation in its petals easily if you photograph it bright. Hold the exposure down a little and that deep pink stays instead of washing out. If you are taking in the Skytree as well, where you place the tower in the frame changes the picture entirely. Let it show through a gap in the branches and you get depth; push it out to the edge instead and the spread of river and blossom becomes the subject. Edogawa Ward likewise points to the area north of Fureai Bridge, near the JR Sobu Line railway bridge, as the spot for photographing blossom against the Skytree.
While you're in the area
Even the same February Kawazu cherry changes its face when the riverbank changes. At Tobu Bridge in Oshiage the blossom spreads at the foot of the tower, high enough that you look up at it. Travel out to Iwai Weir in Asahi, Chiba, and every trace of the city is gone: there the Kawazu cherries bloom in a ring around a whole field of rape flowers. The city cherry and the country cherry. See one season in two places and you begin to understand how much range this flower has.
And come back to the same Kyu-Nakagawa in another season. In May, orange poppies bloom a little upstream at Hirai; in June the foot of Fureai Bridge fills with white Annabelles. A river in the old downtown is a place where something is in flower all year round.
Pale pink clusters of blossom, and a modern tower 634 m high. We deliver this early spring in the middle of the city — which you can only meet in the short window from the first day of spring through the second month — as a silver-halide print on FUJICOLOR's finest photographic paper, shipped worldwide.
💾 A digital download is also available ($7.00 each). Bundles cost less: 3 for $17.84, 5 for $26.23 ($5.25 each) — mix any photographs you like.
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