Stream and Skyline View, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Tokyo

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden covers about 58.3 hectares on land that once belonged to the Naito family, feudal lords under the Edo shogunate. The Meiji government converted the site into an imperial garden, which opened in 1906 under the design of French landscape architect Henri Martinet, who blended French formal, English landscape, and traditional Japanese styles within a single grounds. Damaged during World War II, the garden reopened to the public in 1949 as a national garden managed by Japan's Ministry of the Environment. Its Japanese garden section includes ponds, bridges, and a teahouse built around a spring-fed stream system that still threads through the property. The garden draws roughly two million visitors annually, many arriving each spring for its cherry blossom season.

Photo taken in March 2023.