As an aside Japan is big on classifying everything in top 3, top 100 and so on which is really useful when trying to decide on what to see. And that is how we decided on our next stop, Kairakuen Garden, one of the top three landscape gardens in Japan. That and it is free which is relatively unusual for a tourist attraction in Japan. It takes a bit to decide where to park but then we orient ourselves a bit using the conveniently placed map and watch the swans jumping down into a canal before starting towards the main area of the garden.
The walk starts with an overpass, with elevators, that goes above the highway and then passes a few nicely maintained ponds before starting to climb through a wild maintained forest which is a common contradiction in Japan.
Soon we arrive at a spring which as we find out from a nearby sign, is sacred, which is also common in Japan. There are a few couples drinking and touching the water so we move on climbing to the top of the hill on the trail which has become a boardwalk after the spring.
After we recuperate a bit from the climb which was easier than in the morning as it is cloudy now and less hot we investigate the bamboo forest nearby, almost expecting to see a panda jump from it..no such luck. Then we finally find what Kairakuen is so well known for – the plum trees. Supposedly it is the place to be in the spring when all the trees are blooming but now it is fall so the trees are not as impressive. But still you can see how old they are and how maintained they are, some are even propped up by multiple planks of wood.
The trails are quite nice and we enjoy walking around exploring the beautiful garden.
After the plum trees we enter into the more maintained part of the garden with various sculpted bushes and trees. This looks more like a typical Japanese garden to us versus the initial part and we enjoy the difference between them.
Everything even the distant views look managed to look as beautiful as possible which they do, we understand why this is one of the top gardens in Japan.
Of course not everything is nature as the garden is interspersed with signs of human habitation including a castle but we focus on the nature part for now – we will have time to visit castles later.
There is even a small waterfall that we find as we explore the garden, it might be natural or man made, we are not sure.
And then as the day draws to a close we hike back to the car and drive to Nikko the city where we will be staying for the night, we are looking forward to our first night in a ryokan.
