Bonsai museum and district

The area around Omiya-Koen, Omiya Park, hosts the Japanese National Bonsai Museum.











It is just north of Tokyo and  about 1/2 an hour from our house.
In addition to the museum  many bonsai growers and nurseries are in this area.


The museum is hosting the World Bonsai Conference next month and a wonderful exhibition is already in place.

Some of the bonsai on display are classified as national treasures and are hundreds of years old.

This was a favourite of mine. its actually a quince tree, I like the natural look and the texture of the trunk.


After the greart Tokyo earthquake of 1923 the bonsai growers of Tokyo moved en-mass to this part of Omiya where there was more land available and  they all settled together in this area.

The growers adopted a set of strict rules beween themselves one of which was that their gardens and nurseries  should be freeely open to the public.




To this day quite a few of the growers and gardens survive and it is lovely to walk and explore amongst them.

The streets are wide, beautful and quiet and a great contrast to the modern jumbled
ugliness of much of settled modern Japan.

As a bonus we came across an archery school practicing.

Sakura Time

It's cherry blossom time in Tokyo. This year about a week later than usual. It is  fair to say that the Japanese go a little crazy at this time. 

Hordes descend on parks to picnic, with family, colleagues and friends. It can get very crowded indeed.

It wouldn't be a proper local festival without the obligatory dancing grannies.

There is always a group of them at every festival.






I've almost managed to erase the memory of the stetson and cowboy booted line dancing grannies that amazed the crowd in rural Gunma last year, but it has  been hard to.

Luckily I found a beautiful avenue of trees on an irrgiation canal not far from the house so we were able to have our own cherry blossom viewing picnic without another soul around.

In Tokyo city itself you can see many trees outside of the parks.

Left are the trees by the outer moat of the palace at Iidabashi

The area along the river at Nakameguro is a very popular spot in Tokyo. Great corwds assemble to take selfies, stroll along and drink pink champagne etc.

Finally two of my favourite trees. Firstly the tree opposite our house by the 500 year old temple. it's in full flower at the moment.

 

And finally the Takizakura, waterfall cherry, in Fukushima, this tree is over a thousand years old and during all that time the loicals have been caring for it.

 

 

Autumn in The Mountains

It's now freezing cold here and indeed it snowed quite heavily the other day.

Before the end of November though we were able to get up to the mountains near Chichibu and enjoy the Autumn colours.

These photos were taken at and on the way to our favourite old nunnery that is hidden away deep in the mountains.

The Ōchigawa, is a tributary of the Arakawa, it is full of autumn colours and delicious fish at  this time of year.

Kyoto

We hadn't been to Kyoto for about 18 years so it was good to make an autumn trip there on a recent weekend.

It is of course very popular with foreign tourists and can get a little crowded to say the least.

But if you get up early and get going you can avoid the worst of the crowds.

Also there are many temples futther out that are incredibly beautiful and little visited compared to the more famous ones.

Part of a trip to Kyoto is enjoying a traditional Kaiseki meal in an old inn.

Here are some, just some, of the dishes we had for dinner.

 Below are various photos of Kyoto and its gardens and temples.

It is easy to see why it is so popular.

The Yoshimine Temple in the western hills overlooking Kyoto waw particularly beautiful with the autumn colours. Also not crowded at all as it is quite a way out of town and we were there early.

This is a very old pine tree at Yoshimine that has been trained horizontally it runs for about 50 meters and is meant to be the longest in Japan.

The rock garden Mt Fuji, a little odd I thought.