On Friday, Pam and I were joined by our friend Jill Bramlet, from Wheatland. She has been in Japan for a week visiting an elementary school. We decided we should do a tour of Tokyo, which by many estimates is the largest metropolitan area in the world. We thought a tour would help us to see quite a few things without having to figure out how to get around ourselves! We first stopped at the Hama-Rikyo Garden. This is a Japanese feudal lord garden. It used to have two moats that surrounded parts of it. It still has a tidal pond that is fed with sea water, making it the only salt water pond in the city.Look at this big old pine tree. It's 300 years old. See how it is supported by some posts underneath the limbs? Our guide told us that it needs support just like an old human would need support!
The garden had two moats originally. The moats were for protection, but they also served as a way to ship goods. A few years ago they excavated one of the moats and restored some of the steps used to unload goods.
The garden has a restored tea room. The original one was burned. The Japanese perform what is called the Tea Ceremony, and it takes place in one of these rooms. Actually, our president, Ulysses S. Grant was treated to a tea ceremony by the emperor of Japan right here.
Here is a picture of our friend Jill with Pam and me. We are standing in front of a big tree of cherry blossoms. Those trees are all over the city, but we are just catching the end of the cherry blossom season. We were lucky to see these.
Near the end of our walk we saw these structures and thought, "What in the world are these?"
Well, come to find out they were used for duck hunting! You can read here how the ducks were lured into the enclosures.
This is wisteria, and it grows over the framework and makes a type of beautiful shelter.
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