20,000 trees await your arrival at the Shinjuku Gyoen National Park, the upturned faces of flowers beaded with dew like tiny glittering gems in the morning light. The plants exude an air of graceful elegance, shying away from the eyes of the many visitors eager to catch the perfect picture before them. In the face of such delicate beauty, it’s hard to picture that these grounds began first as the residence of a feudal lord in the Edo period before being almost entirely decimated by the end of WWII.

The restorers wanted to bestow upon the garden elements of the east and west, unfurling three separate landscape gardens as the main attraction. In spring, the spotlight shines on the Japanese Landscape Garden with its iconic pink and white blossoms dusting the grounds and the skies. The French Gardens take the crown in summer, carefully pruned hedges taking on the shape of the clouds. On Momiyijima hill, autumn brings with it the blustering orange and mauve of the maples. Let your feet wander around the grounds of Shinjuku Gyoen National Park, a startling oasis of calm within the hubbub of Shinjuku.