Wadakura Fountain Park – 和田倉噴水公園

Here’s one of my favorite places in Tokyo, the Wadakura Fountain Park (和田倉噴水公園), in Marunouchi just to the side of the Imperial Palace. The park forms a corner of the Imperial Outer Gardens at it was inaugurated as a public park in 1961 in honor of the Crown Prince’s, HRH Akihito, wedding. HRH Akihito is now known as Emperor Heisei. The spectacular fountains were inaugurated in 1995 and reaches a height of 8.5m. They are beautifully lit up at night and thanks to this 15 000 square meter piece of land being hidden in a pocket between two moats and a busy four lane street it is usually very empty of people, one of the hidden treasures of Tokyo despite the gorgeous restaurant just next to the fountain. I don’t think many people in Tokyo has ever heard of this place or even visited it. On the day of the big earthquake in March the fountains were turned off and didn’t come on again until last month so I have made sure to visit a couple of times since then just to enjoy the beautiful evenings there. The name Wadakura is a bit of a mystery, some scholars think that it is the name of a small village located on this spot in the late 16th century when plans were made to build the new city of Edo.