japanese garden

With the puppies all worn out, we could leave them behind to nap and go show Chris and Jen our town. One of our favorite places is the Japanese Garden, located in the wooded hills overlooking downtown Portland.

I’ve read that Japanese gardens are meticulously planned, so that every view from every angle was artistically designed, like an interlocking set of three-dimensional paintings. You can easily see that in the raked gravel areas, reflecting ponds, waterfalls, and stone lanterns and fountains, but even in the apparently “wild” areas I was amazed by the fascinating variations in the textures and shades of green as if it were a paint-by-numbers :-)

But even here, randomness can create beauty of its own, with one late-fallen leaf remaining from the previous autumn. Or was it random? Maybe the gardeners intentionally left just that one leaf in that one spot? hmmmm…..