Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Suizenji Park (水前寺成趣園)

We have now moved on from Nagasaki to the central prefecture of Kumamoto and the capital city that shares its name.

Below are pictures from my visit to Suizenji Park, one of the city's famous tourist attractions. Construction on the park began in 1636. The layout of the park is meant to represent the views seen when traveling the old highway between Kyoto and Edo (modern day Tokyo).

The two large "tsukiyama" or artificially constructed mountains in the park are modeled after the famous peaks of Mount Fuji and Mount Aso. Luckily they left out the artificially modeled topiary vending machines and pachinko parlors that one would also see when traveling between the two cities these days.

Despite the fact that it was wintertime and most of the greenery was long dead, the beauty of the park still shone through.

Enjoy the pictures!

B.E.W.

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