I’m not sure what I was expecting when I visited Tokyo last November but I really wasn’t expecting to see such beautiful autumn colours everywhere.

We spent a relaxing afternoon hanging out at Shinjuku Gyoen park which is like an oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle that is Tokyo. The park comprises three sections, the Japanese garden, an English garden and a formal French garden. The best time to visit is surely in spring when the cherry trees are in bloom but I thought it was beautiful with all the autumn colours.

The highlight for me was, not surprisingly, the Japanese garden.

Everyone was taking pictures of this Japanese Maple. I don’t know what was so special about his particular tree but a number of people had tripods set up and some were taking photos with multiple lenses. I snapped a pic and moved along.

While a nice attempt was made at a formal French garden, the Frenchness just wasn’t there. Nice try though.

The English part of the park was wide open grass where people were having picnics, much like in Hyde Park I suppose. This was the most boring part of the park. Japan > France > England.

More pretty autumn colours:

You can’t forget you’re in Tokyo when you have skyscrapers popping out above the trees.

Still in Shinjuku Gyoen:

This Buddha near Sensoji Temple is supposed to give wisdom to worshippers. It didn’t work for me but maybe I was doing it wrong. At least the trees looked pretty.

This is one of my favourite photos from the trip taken from the top of the Metropolitan Government Building although there is a bit of glare from the window. Can’t have everything I suppose.