the Sakura Theme lives on

Back in our Tokyo Park Hotel, we were thrilled to find that we were placed in the Sakura Room as hoped for but not expected as it is perhaps the hotel's most popular room on the Artists' floor. 

Designed and painted by Hiroko Hitake, it is huge cherry tree whose blossoms fall as fluttering butterflies that turn golden on the midnight blue walls and ceiling, becoming more realistically butterflies as they 'land' on outer walls.

our night view

our day view

Ms Hitake's premise is that the Japanese people see all the world as transient, us humans most of all, and the short, beautiful season of the cherry blossom is a manifestation of that, just as the short life of a butterfly. There is beauty in this transience, and we both relish and weep for it as it passes in the four seasons of the year, and the lifetime of a person. Not a bad sentiment to end a trip and start home life again. 

twixt day and night