One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is a series of Ukiyo-e prints by the Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). The prints were first published in serialized form in 1856–59. Just watching these prints makes me wonder the beauty of Tokyo then with the green cover against the concrete existence of today. Many paintings, you can see Mount Fuji in the distance and this makes me lament my 21st century existence. I should have been in Japan in the “OLD” days. 

There is this Ukiyo-e print of Ueno Park, Moon Pine, a circular pine tree structure. It is said that, the real-life pine tree stood near the Kiyomizu-Kannondo pavilion of the Kan-ei-ji Temple. Its branches were artificially manipulated into a circular loop. The Moon Pine, the circular pine tree structure, in 2015, has been restored to its 200 year old history and I went to check it out.

The Moon Pine, the original is a centuries-old pine, shaped like the crescent moon and it stands in the grounds of the original Kiyomizudera.Inspired by the same, the pine formation in Ueno has been recreated and I had wanted to see for a long time, and the summer festival of 2015, I decided to take some snaps of this recreation at the evening blue hour time just before the sunset. A good stroy is that the priest of the temple in Ueno, initiated the restoration (the original was destroyed in a typhoon in the Meiji Era) and commissioned a regular landscaping contractor he knew. The contractor spent about three and a half years training and shaping the pine. Four trees later and two trees which died, one of the two survivors was made the present Moon Pine and they actually kept the other as a backup.

The Shinobazu Pond exists even today, but the green cover has been replaced by buildings. As per the story, the Pine tree was destroyed in a typhoon in the Meiji Era. Kiyomizu Hall of Kan’ei-ji, in the Ueno Park had this view and there was an effort taken to restore the Pine trees unique formation. Not many artists today can create that healthy circular formation today and efforts from an artist in Akabane, the Moon Pine was recreated in 2012. The traditional technique involves carefully hollowing the central core of the tree and training the branches into a circle without killing the tree.

You can see Benten-do Temple with a blue roof in the distance and Shinobazu Pond surrounding the temple. Its an interesting sight to see in the Cherry Blossom season with beautiful flowers that are in bloom all around Kiyomizu Kannon-do Temple.

The beautiful recreation stands today in Ueno park and a highly recommended spot in the evenings. The original picture is also shown at the bottom and the details of this painting are written in Japanese on a board on the right half of the below picture.

Walked over to the Bentendo temple in the distance next to the Shinobazu Pond and the crowds were all gone and a blissful evening with the sound of birds and the cool breeze of summer. Total bliss in the metropolis

Located just outside the Kesei Ueno Station, refer the Google Maps below. The original tree is gone, but its idea has not disappeared. Centuries later, someone looked at an old painting, understood the shape that once existed here, and patiently taught another living tree to take the same form. It is not really a replica in the usual sense. It is a memory brought back to life, one branch at a time. In Japan, even a tree can carry a piece of history forward.