The Blogger's Garden

The Japanese Gardens were beautiful and tranquil. Jacob actually feel asleep while being rolled around on his stroller.

So what's so special about Portland? Actually, quite a lot. Portland has the largest and most authentic Japanese gardens outside of Japan. And the International Test Rose Garden and the annual Rose Festival has given Portland its sobriquet, the City of Roses.

After an early rise of about 10:30am I headed out for a walk around Washington Park and the Japanese Gardens with Ian. It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining and it was hot. It was around 75degrees in Portland. Again, just what I needed after all that snow.

The valley is situated against a back-drop of tall cliffs and is landscaped with traditional lush Japanese gardens and koi ponds. Inside the Byodo-In Temple is a nine-foot Lotus Buddha. Outside is a three-ton, brass Peace Bell.

My fascination with this type of garden started when I came across the first Japanese Garden I ever saw. My father works in a language school and one of his colleagues is a Japanese professor.

This first day of travelling we made it to Cowra. I wanted to check out the Japanese gardens here as Ive heard about them and never seen them. We knew there was a National Park in the area and so spoke to the information people that pointed out the places to camp in the area.

CS and I took a trip to Delray Beach to see his mother. We visited The Morikami Japanese Gardens while we were there so I uploaded some photos on Flickr and did some fancy-pants photo-editting to the new header. It seems my camera is on the fritz so anytime I took a picture while holding the camera vertically, the digital screen went black and the frame in the viewfinder isn’t really what you end up with. Blindly pointing and shooting adds a little mystery, no?

The highlights by far were the breathtaking Japanese gardens that most of the sites contain. They are all beautifully laid out, and easy to walk through. We learned about the main elements that make a Japanese gardern--water, garden plants, stones, waterfalls, trees, and bridges.

English gardens, much like Japanese gardens, are like extensions of the home, separate rooms. With the rise in popularity of “outdoor living,” I predict that more American homes will duplicate the beauty of a traditional English garden.

I was intrigued when my coworker talked about this beautiful city, and now I’m even more so. Buenos Aires looks amazing with lots of great things to do and places to see, like the Japanese Gardens with the Koi fish, or Plaza Dorrego, a weekly outdoor festival and shopping extravaganza. Man, every city should do this - they close down the neighboring area to traffic and set up this open-air market. Fun!