Each year, millions of people across Japan enjoy hanami (花見). Although the word literally translates as “flower viewing,” it is most commonly used in reference to one specific flower: the sakura, or cherry blossom. From late March through early April, when the sakura bloom throughout Japan, friends, family, and co-workers gather for hanami at cherry blossom viewing parties to eat, drink, and enjoy the delicate pink blossoms.

Shinjuku-Gyoen, a large park located a few minutes east of Shinjuku Station that barely gets a mention in most travel guides, is one popular hanami location. It is one of the many oases of green space that dot Tokyo, and as with many of the others, you soon forget after walking through its gates that you are smack in the middle of the largest, most crowded city on the planet. As you enter, the noise from the streets dies away and all that remains is the sound of birds and muffled sounds of people enjoying the season.

The park, officially declared a “national garden,” is one of the largest and most beautiful in Tokyo. Originally designated as an imperial garden upon its completion in 1906, it was re-opened as a public space after World War II. The garden’s 144 acres are divided into formal French, English landscape, and traditional Japanese sections. It also containing a greenhouse featuring a variety of exotic tropical species.

Over 1,500 sakura trees can be seen at Shinjuku-Gyoen, and it is obviously these that draw the most attention each spring. The Saturday morning I visited, I arrived just as the first of the crowds of picnickers were flowing in, laying out their bright blue tarps and staking their claims to the prime hanami locations. Groups of sakura admirers carrying thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment surrounded the trees with the fullest blooms, planting their tripods in the ground to take the ultimate close-up of the blossoms.

Since this is the first time I have been in Japan while the sakura are in bloom, it was also my first experience with hanami. I didn’t have a group of friends and a blue tarp, so I just walked around taking it all in: the children running around on the grass while the adults sat and chatted under the canopy of cherry blossoms, the young couples sharing bento boxes, the men and women painting pictures of the beautiful landscape around them, and, of course, the beauty of the park and blooming sakura.

Aside from the sakura, the definite main attraction at Shinjuku Gyoen, there were a variety of other gorgeous flowers, trees, and buildings. The Taiwan Pavilion provided an excellent vantage point overlooking the sakura trees below. Exposed cypress roots in one section of the garden made me feel as though I had stepped into a fairy tale or onto an alien world. Outside a traditional teahouse (of which there are two inside Shinjuku Gyoen), a stone lantern stood watch. Walking around a corner inside the tropical greenhouse, I found myself face-to-face with a dangling mass of fruit that looked more like part of a squid than a plant. A giant lilypad floated in a pond among beautiful purple flowers. A bright pink azalea bush provided an eruption of color in front of a row of trees covered with the paler pink sakura blossoms.

The calm, leisurely pace that was dominant here was in stark contrast to the fast, frantic action of the city that loomed in the background and provided my jet-lagged mind with a nice break from the endless crowds of the Shinjuku Station area. After spending a few hours walking around Shinjuku Gyoen, I headed back outside, refreshed and ready to deal with the crowds of cosplaying teenagers, loud music, and hordes of shoppers in Harajuku.