Sugamo Station

There're beautiful cherry blossoms around Sugamo station.
A row of cherry blossoms is along with JR Yamanote Line.

It's nice to walk from Otsuka station to Sugamo station in this season.

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<The Nearest Station>

JR Sugamo station on Yamanote Line

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Night view at Somei Graveyard

Night view at Somei Graveyard is extraordinary.
It's very quiet and a little bit scary.

Yes, I agree that dead bodies are under beautiful cherry blossoms.

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<The Nearest Station>

Sugamo station on Yamanote Line

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Somei Graveyard

Somei Graveyard is known as the birth place of Someiyoshino which is the most popular kind of cherry blossoms.

There's a theory that dead bodies are buried under the beautiful cherry blossoms.

This may be true when you see cherry blossoms here (in graveyard).
Volume of flowers seems to be bigger than regular cherry blossoms.

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<The Nearest Station>

Sugamo station on Yamanote Line

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Togenuki Jizo

Jizo is a guardian deity of children.
Togenuki Jizo is a Temple in Sugamo and famous for relief of pain.

Jizo itself is not open to public but you can get papers with a picture of Jizo.
This paper is believed to relief the pain if you put it on the place of pain.

This is from the old story that a woman who swallowed a needle by mistake was saved by this paper. After she swallowed this paper with water by the instruction of a monk, she threw up a needle and recovered.

There's a stone statue of Arai-Kannon in front yard and it has a queue of the people to wait for washing the statue. It is believed that your pain will be relieved when you wash the place of the pain.

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<The Nearest Station>

JR Sugamo Station on Yamanote Line
Sugamo station on Mita Line (I15/Toei Subway)

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The shopping street from the station to the temple is popular among senior people.
I feel I become taller when I walk on this street.
It's called "Grandmother's Harajuku". Harajuku is a popular town for teenagers.

At the entrance of the shopping street there's another temple which has one of Edo six Jizos.
Edo six Jizos are sitting statues of Jizo built in early 18th century and 5 of them exists now. All of them are in the same size. It's about 2.7 m high.

1. Shinagawaji Temple in Shinagawa (Tokaido)
2. Touzenji Temple in Asakusa (Oshu Kaido)
3. Taisouji Temple in Shinjuku (Koshu Kaido)
4. Shinshoji Temple in Sugamo (Nakasendo)
5. Reiganji Temple in Kiyosumi Shirakawa (Mito Kaido)
6. Eitaiji Temple (Not Exist now) in Tomioka (Chiba Kaido)

Shinshoji Temple