On the first day of our tour we visited a Japan National Trust Property in Tokyo. It was built in 1919 for its first owner Yoshisaburo Fujita, but after a few years was sold to Zenshiro Yasuda whose house had been destroyed in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. The house is one of the few remaining large houses built in the traditional style, using traditional techniques.
The building zigzags down the long narrow block with a dry landscape garden that widens progressively. It is designed so that the garden's character is different when seen from each room.
The formal Japanese room on the ground floor has a large square tokonoma in which this ikebana was displayed.
I was particularly fascinated by the very distinct changes in the light levels of the rooms as well as the shadows that were cast on the shoji screens. These shifts in light level gave various parts, even of a single room, different characteristics.
The next day we took a shinkansen to Kanazawa...
...where we caught our first glimpse of snow capped mountains.
Our first outing in Kanazawa was to the famous garden of Kenroku-en. Because of the unseasonally warm weather there was not a lot of autumn colour. However, we had the good fortune to be present of the day when the long horizontal branches of some of the pines are secured to prevent their breaking under the weight of the winter snow to come.
We saw large group of skilled arborists carefully tying ropes around the branches from the top of a tall pole. All done with great precision and care.
The finished job looked quite beautiful. It also became apparent how necessary this task is when you realise that the large branch extending out over the water comes from the trunk of one of the two tall trees on the right.
A little further on in the garden I did come across some scattered patches of red Japanese maple leaves among the lovely soft green ones.
The end of this branch looked especially lovely with the sun coming through the leaves.
In our further travels as we headed toward Kyoto I was surprised to see a lot of Golden rod Solidago, which is native to North America and Mexico. Apparently it has become quite invasive in Japan.
I was surprised by my success of actually catching the moment when this butterfly landed on a flower head.
The next two nights we spent in the ancient capital of Nara. This was the view from our hotel room on the mountainside near the great temple of Todai-ji.
Greetings from Christopher
Thank you for these beautiful and so interesting pictures.
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