LOTUS FLOWER
“LOTUS FLOWERS SIGNIFY THE SWELTERING SUMMER OF TOKYO.”
MID JULY - MID AUGUST JAPANESE NAME: HASU NO HANA
Growing defiantly in dark muddy waters, through long hot conditions to open and show off its spectacularly beautiful blossom if only for a few brief hours a day, the lotus is a symbol of endurance, enlightenment, purity, and the rewards that one can reap from overcoming hardship.
The flower’s peak season is mid-July to mid-August, during some of the city’s harshest summer months.
Often also a symbol of religious reincarnation, this water-dwelling flower, with its oversized leaves and pink, purple and white petals, is a commonly used Buddhist motif, which is why you’ll often find them cultivated near spiritual locations such as temples and shrines. Dai Miyamoto, the founder of Japan Localised, an organisation that runs tours throughout Japan, including a flagship tour that visits spacious Ueno Park, explains the seasonal ambience the lotus brings to the city: “Lotus flowers signify the sweltering summer of Tokyo.”
The most iconic place to see lotus in the peak season is Ueno Park’s Shinobazu Pond, which also has a lotus observation deck. Here, the lotus flowers open in the early morning and close by around noon, “So they will motivate you to wake up early and visit the park to see the beautiful scenery,” says Miyamoto. “I, like many locals, love to run around the pond in the early morning and start the day.”
He brings his guests to this pond to help offer a deeper cultural context of the park’s history: “This pond and the park that surrounds it are an important place to understand about the Tokugawa Shogunate era. They tried to build Ueno Park’s features to look like Kyoto. During WWII, it was turned into a paddy field, but after they built the pond.”
During the blossoming season, the surrounding area is home to the Ueno Summer Festival, a summer celebration with dance performances, markets and paper lantern floating events (known as toro nagashi) held on the lotus-filled pond.