Ohanami or the flower viewing is the most popular spring activities in Japan. Unfortunately, this year 2020, due to the spread of the COVID-19, we are advised not to do flower viewing. But we can still enjoy flower viewing on the website. ...
Ritsurin Garden is a must-visit Japanese garden in Kagawa Prefecture. Ritsurin, written in Chinese characters, means “chestnuts woods”. But interestingly, there is no chestnuts trees in this garden. Instead, the garden has many pine trees and other various greens and flowers. ...
Itchiku Kubota Art Museum, located near Kawaguchi-ko Lake in Yamanashi, is an off-the-beaten-path architecture. Kubota was an textile artist who revived the old silk dyeing. And this museum was dedicated to exhibit his craftwork. The silk he dyed is of course beautiful but what I like most is the architecture ...
In Japan, some gardens may open at night during the peak time of autumn foliage. Such gardens are usually packed with people and it is often prohibited to use tripods. You know, taking photos at night without a tripod is extremely difficult. But I found that Higo Hosokawa Garden in ...
These days, roof-top garden is not so surprising. But I happened to visit a “garden in the sky” which was quite unique. It is Meguro Sky Garden. This garden is over Ohashi Junction which connects Metropolitan Expressway and Central Circular Expressway (Chuo Kanjo-sen). Whaaaat? The garden over the expressways? What ...
West meets east. It was a century-old story of Japanese history. The western-style architecture started flowing into Japan in late 19th century. That was the time when the Japanese government system changed dramatically. During the course of the cultural change, the new government encouraged to adopt western style and western ...
If you visit Rikugien Garden or Koishikawa Botanical Gardens, walk a little bit more and you will find a unique museum of Toyo Bunko Library. It was built in 1924 by Mitsubishi clan as a library for the oriental studies. Today, they have about one million books of Asian countries and ...
There are many temples and shrines in Yamanashi perhaps partly because it was governed by a powerful feudal lord Shingen Takeda. The architecture of those old monuments is worth visiting but apart from the architecture, there are beautiful Japanese gardens. ...