It’s time to bask in sunshine, birdsong, and blossom-filled breezes. Koganei Park, situated at the center of the Tokyo metropolis, looks like the ideal spot for such a “spring-gasm.” The JR Chuo express train whisks me from Yotsuya to Musashi-Koganei in less than 30 minutes, and I alight with glee.
At the station's north exit, however, I'm confronted with a soul-sucking sprawl-o-rama of pachinko parlors, banks and fast-food joints. Hanging onto hope, I jog off to the right, spotting a stretch of greenery beyond an alley crammed with bicycles. I hike east along the edge of this green patch — a cross between a tree farm and a botanical garden. This slice of paradise is roped, fenced and walled off, but I glimpse fields inside dotted with fallen chestnuts, cherries in full bloom and camellias groaning with oversized, voluminous flowers. The property yawns on, and I wonder to whom it belongs. Finding no one to ask, I continue wandering north.
Along narrow lanes where singing birds are the primary auditory entertainment, I admire tidy suburban homes. The occasional open field, where vegetable farmers turn the soil and mark out rows for spring planting, reminds me that Koganei was once the green grocer of Edo (the old name for modern-day Tokyo).