It's sakura (cherry blossom) time again, and I've got three special spots to recommend beneath the pale, poetic petals in Tokyo. One will present you with a single starlit beauty, another will have you rolling around in an expansive venue of varied cherries, or if the spirit moves you there's a climb to a shrine that stakes out the floral high ground.
Early in the hanami (flower-viewing) season, head to Rikugien to catch this garden's one-trunk wonder, a massive shidare zakura (weeping cherry tree). Just outside Komagome Station are Rikugien's Somei gates, named after the somei yoshino variety of cherry. If they are open it means the blooming has begun; otherwise, the general admission gate is a 10-minute walk south (entrance fee is ¥300).
Completed in 1702 by feudal lord Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, Rikugien was designed with poetic principles in mind, and is usually a quiet oasis of greenery, hillocks and ponds. When the famed tree is in bloom, however, crowds of paparazzi wait to get in and guests line up at Fugiage-chaya, the park's teahouse.