PHOTO SPOT GUIDE
Kawazu Cherry Blossoms and Skytree — An Early Spring, Three Riversides Deep
February, and you still cannot put the winter coat away. Even so, a few riversides have already taken on the colour of spring. The Kawazu cherry: an early-flowering cherry that opens a mass of deep-pink blossom a good deal sooner than the Somei-yoshino. Here is that colour as I met it at three watersides in Tokyo and Chiba, together with a photograph.
A silver tower standing over the water
The foot of Tobu Bridge, in Oshiage. The Kawazu cherries planted along the Kita-Jikken River spread their deep-pink flowers into the sky at a height you look up at. Beyond those branches, right in front of you, Tokyo Skytree stands its silver body straight up. An early cherry and a modern tower: two things that had no particular reason to meet, quietly overlapping in the clear air of February. While the whole city is still waiting for spring, here alone it has already come — and that faintly guilty happiness is, I think, what draws people to this place every year. The colour of the flowers looks deeper than usual, surely, because the sky is still winter.
Three riversides, two kinds of early spring
The same Kawazu cherry wears a different face on each riverbank. A little away from Oshiage, at the waterside of the Kyu-Nakagawa, in the moment the current quietly stops the blossom and — on a clear day — the Skytree are reproduced exactly on the surface. Sky, blossom and tower spreading both above and below. Then head for Iwai Weir in Asahi, Chiba, and every trace of the city is gone: there the pink of Kawazu cherries blooms in a ring around a whole field of yellow rape flowers. Deep pink and soft yellow. It is surprising how much colour the country spring holds. A city river, a downtown river, a country weir. Look at one flower in three places and the range of this cherry begins to show.
An early spring on a February riverbank.
Deep pink, undoing the winter.
On to the individual location guides
The Kyu-Nakagawa and Iwai Weir each have a photo spot guide of their own. Seasons, access and shooting tips are all set out there.
Planning your visit — season
An early-flowering cherry, so the trick is to move earlier than the calendar tells you.
In Tokyo and Chiba the Kawazu cherry comes into its best roughly between late February and mid-March — about a month ahead of the Somei-yoshino, and in warm years it can start flowering from the middle of February. Tobu Bridge at Oshiage, the subject of this article, can be enjoyed at close quarters from the walkway along the Kita-Jikken River. The Kyu-Nakagawa offers a water mirror and Iwai Weir a contest of colour with rape flowers; their characters are quite distinct, so choose your destination by what you want to photograph. Blooming shifts from year to year, so please check the latest conditions in the official information for each place.
Getting there
For Tobu Bridge at Oshiage, the nearest stations are Tokyo Skytree Station on the Tobu Skytree Line, or Oshiage Station on the Toei Asakusa Line and the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line; both are a short walk. The waterside of the Kyu-Nakagawa is reached from Hirai Station on the JR Sobu Line among others, and Iwai Weir in Asahi, Chiba, from the Asahi community bus. Full directions for each are set out in the individual location guides.
Tips for photographers
If you are taking in the Skytree and the blossom together, 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. The Kawazu cherry is a deep-coloured flower and loses the gradation in its petals easily if photographed bright, so holding the exposure down a little keeps that deep pink from washing out. At Tobu Bridge the blossom spreads at a height you look up at, so composing from below and out into the sky puts tower and flowers in the same frame. For a water mirror go to the Kyu-Nakagawa; for contrast of colour, Iwai Weir. Choosing the place from the picture you want is the surest approach.
While you're in the area
At Oshiage there is pleasure in going up to the observation deck of Tokyo Skytree Town and looking down on the river of blossom you were looking up at. Wander the old shopping streets and long-established coffee houses and you meet the slower time that runs at the foot of the tower. Travel on into Boso in Chiba and early-spring flowers are scattered through the villages near the sea as well, so that one trip can join the two springs, city and country, together.
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