With the great weather we have been experiencing, we decided that another garden is just the thing. We went to the Koishikawa Botanical Gardens and strolled through the entire garden. It is the oldest botanical garden in Japan and originated as the Koishikawa Medicinal Herb Garden in 1684. We brought lunch but did not eat it in our standard Progressive Park Picnic format. Mostly because seating was spotty and we were hungry. There were many notable groves of trees, a meta-sequoia tree grove, a cedar and cypress tree grove, a sequoia tree grove, a cherry tree grove and a maple tree grove. We initially paralleled the metal fence until we reached the end of the park. Then we climbed to the high ground and returned to the entrance along the ridge. There were some greenhouses to visit, beds of flowers all along the way and a bench or two to sit and watch the people go by. We estimated that 90% of the visitors were local Tokyoites and the remaining were tourists.
It is the start of a long holiday weekend and the station is more crowded than it has been
The footwear is all over the map from fancy
To gothic
To just got out of the bed
This sweatshirt was all embroidered
Just what I said!
A delightfully decorated transfer station
I see a frog!
The public art is everywhere especially here in the Kaiserslautern Square. The square is named after the sister city Kaiserslautern in Germany
A type of fish that you can ride? This fish had a bust of Frederick I, the first King of Prussia
This surrealistic art trove was made by artists Gernot and Barbera Rumph
From the wear patterns in the bronze it appears that it gets ridden quite often
A small park on our walk to the gardens
More beautiful ironwork
We are at the park but have to walk a half a kilometer to het to the entrance
This was a serious metal wall
We became familiar with this wall as we walked along it
We passed the Koishikawa fire station, with this much activity we wondered if it is also the Firefighter's Academy?
The fence from the other side
A grove of metasequoia trees, identified from fossils from the tertiary period. In 1941 living plants were discovered alive in China
Ferns
A couple of shrines were inside the park
Places to pray and reflect
Yellow Irises
A blooming good time
All the plantings are marked off
A little pond
With a bridge
This is a branch of University of Tokyo Museum
Unfortunately it is closed temporarily
A maple tree with a butterfly
So pretty
We have reached the end of the flat ground
The Sequoia trees
Big and tall
Cool bark
A tree of many colors
An old fire hydrant
What is the shelf life of a shelf fungus?
A memorial to the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. Many people took refuge in this park and some stayed here for over 2 years
Let the parade of flowers begin
Like the yesterday, today and tomorrow bush these are the "today, tomorrow and some other day to be identified later bush"
A Japanese Tit
The trees up on top were magnificent
A shady spot and two birds
The brown-eared bulbuls
Maples with their helicopter seed pods already growing
So nice!
The Camellia garden
Almost bloomed out
Hopefully this is the name of the camellia variety, not the final resting place
A huge camphor tree
The glass houses
Systematic garden
Tiny little flowers
Hibiscus bloom
A kind of lily
Little lily of the valleys
Another lily
So cute
Back outside for some more irises
Purple
The bees are busy
This is a butterfly but it was so big I thought at first it may have been a bird
There is a little kid who crawled into the center of this big bush
We have reached the main flowing beds
Purple Irises
A small yellow bloom
Many of the paths were dirt tracks
This clock is only correct twice a day
Tis was built in 1939 and it is the main botanical building. I houses 700,000 specimens and has 20,000 botanical books
I really likes the staircase in the tower
Bold and blue
Like a firework
Toes pointing!
Along our walk
Cymbidium orchids
A floral shop
We had to go in and ooh and ahh!
It has been 1 year and 333 days since we began our Migration
