Chūreitō Pagoda (Arakurayama Sengen Park)

Arakurayama Sengen Park, on a wooded hillside above Fujiyoshida, is the source of one of the most reproduced images of Japan: a red five-storey pagoda in the foreground, a cloud of cherry blossom around it, and the perfect cone of Mount Fuji filling the sky behind. The pagoda, called the Chūreitō, is not a Buddhist temple building at all but a war memorial. Completed in 1962 in reinforced concrete and about 19.5 m tall, it was built in the traditional form to honour 1,055 people of Fujiyoshida who died in Japan's wars.

The park itself opened in 1959 on the slopes of Mount Arakura, the sacred hill of the Arakura Fuji Sengen Shrine, one of the Sengen shrines that ring the mountain. From the shrine, the Sakuyahime stairway of 398 steps climbs about 200 m up through the trees to the pagoda and an observation terrace just above it; it is from here that the classic composition opens out, with the town of Fujiyoshida spread below and Fuji rising directly beyond it. Some 650 Somei Yoshino cherry trees are planted across the hillside, so that in April the pagoda seems to float on a pink sea, while in the colder months a snow-capped Fuji dominates the scene.

The view became world-famous only recently. In 2011 Yamanashi Prefecture promoted the park to Thai travel companies as a place where Fuji and "old Kyoto" could be seen in a single frame, and the image spread quickly; the scene later appeared on the cover of the Michelin Green Guide to Japan, which gives the site two stars.

Getting there

The park is in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture, about 7 km from the centre of the city, and about a 10-minute walk from Shimoyoshida Station on the Fujikyuko Line. From Tokyo, take the JR Chūō Line from Shinjuku to Ōtsuki and change to the Fujikyuko Line to Shimoyoshida (about two to two and a half hours in total), or a highway bus from the Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal to the Chūō-dō Shimoyoshida stop, about 15 minutes' walk away. Tokyo's airports are the practical choice for flights; the geographically nearest airfield, Oshima (OIM), about 95 km away, is on an island.