Walks and Gardens

At the Senso-ji Temple in the Asakusha District of Tokyo, we walked through the surrounding gardens. This was a very peaceful place.

This is a statue of the Buddha. They have a lot of them in Japan.

Here are Alonda and Erna in front of a shrine in the garden.

We spent an afternoon before the official tour in the Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens in Tokyo. There were at least 30 monuments scattered around in the garden. Most of them have carvings on natural rocks. We don't know what they say.

One of the first things on our tour was taking the Water Bus on the Sumida River to the Hamrikyu gardens. It was actually a very interesting way to see some of Tokyo. We enjoyed snacks and drinks on the boat since the day was very warm. Boats used to be a major way to move cargo and people around Tokyo.

The Hamrikyu gardens are in the city of Tokyo. About the only thing in bloom when we were there were the azaleas. We chose our travel time to specifically avoid the cherry blossom season. Tokyo is a large city and when you add in all the extra tourists ...

We traveled to Kamakura to visit the giant Buddha (see previous post). After visiting the statue, we went on a hike to the Kamakura-gu shrine where you could wash your money (see previous post). The hike was more strenuous than we had anticipated.

The view from the top was quite spectacular.

This is part of the Tokaido Trail through the Japanese Cedars going to the Samurai Control Gate. We did see some flowers blooming in the forest.

This is the Japanese Iris.

This is Wisteria.

We went on a tour around the World Heritage Temple and Garden. We were fascinated by the garden since everything was labelled. There were a lot of things in bloom, too. Erna and Alonda were in 7th Heaven.

This is an example of the signage. It had the Japanese and the scientific name. This is an azalea bush.

This is some variety of a hydrangea but we couldn't find an exact translation.

This is a Japanese Spirea.

This is what the pathway through this peaceful, beautiful and cool garden looked like.

If you didn't want to have to plant and water and weed, you can always do the Zen Garden thing and rake the rocks.

One of the highlights of the trip was a walk through a bamboo forest in Kyoto. These were easily the largest bamboo we had ever seen.

This is the Japanese Black Pine garden at the Imperial Palace. All of the trees have been carefully trimmed for a loooong time.

After we walked around the Imperial Gardens, we rested at the Wood Terrace and watched these fountains change their presentations.

 In the background, you can see the Black Pines and the closer trees are Ginkgoes.