Nara pics 3 (beautiful gardens)

[jinian]

First stop: Yoshikien. This turned out to be free to foreign tourists, and they wanted me to fill out a survey in exchange. (Where are you from? China __ Korea __ Someplace else ____________)

It's small and quiet and lovely. Few flowers at this season, though their moss garden area was in fine form.









This beautiful toad-lily had a soft, strong fragrance a lot like some orchids.



Next door is the rather more famous and extensive Isuien, which has a small museum on the grounds for the same admission price. The museum had pottery and useful things from Japan, China, and Korea, but the standouts were the various paintings, which showed some really lovely styles I hadn't seen before. I was antsy due to limited time by then so didn't take the notes about the artists that I should have.






Nandaimon in the background.











Panorama of the constructed lake, which a placard informed me was dug in the shape of the "abbreviated form" of the Chinese character for water. Ha ha, Meiji-era guys, you are very clever. Wikipedia says the interesting stepping stones were grindstones used for pigments.