Walk on gold under golden ginkgo trees
In late autumn, ginkgo trees (icho) turn a bright, clear yellow, and along an avenue of them the leaves close over your head like a tunnel and then carpet the ground. Walk slowly and look up, then down. The color lasts only a couple of weeks, usually from late October in the north to early December in Tokyo, so check the color reports before you go.
Two rows of tall ginkgo trees, trimmed into neat cone shapes, lead toward the domed Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery in central Tokyo. When the leaves turn, usually in late November, they form a golden tunnel, and once they start falling the road is yellow too. It is a short walk from Aoyama-itchome or Gaienmae Station and gets very crowded at the peak, especially on weekends.
An avenue of ginkgo trees inside Showa Kinen Park, a huge national park in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, under an hour from Shinjuku by train. Walk under the golden leaves, then rest on the wide lawns nearby; during the autumn festival in November, the park also opens for evening walks. You need an entry ticket for the park, and the nearest gate is a short walk from Tachikawa Station.
The central path of a large sports park in Fukushima City, north of Tokyo, lined for about 520 meters with 116 ginkgo trees. They usually turn from late October to mid-November, and at the peak the avenue is sometimes lit up at night. Fukushima is about 90 minutes from Tokyo by shinkansen, the bullet train, and the park is a bus or taxi ride from the station.
On the Hokkaido University campus in central Sapporo, about 70 ginkgo trees line a road of about 380 meters from the North 13 Gate, forming a golden canopy overhead. At the peak the road is closed to cars, so you can walk right down the middle. The color comes early this far north, usually from late October to early November, and the campus is a short walk from the subway.