New garden tours coming up and in the works for 2019
What new and upcoming garden tours do I have planned for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019?
In May, I will return to Italy for the ninth time to lead a very special Islands and Lakes Garden Tour, starting in Lugano and moving quickly to the Milanese lakes. You can see details here.
From there, we will head to Sardinia...
From Hiroshima to the white heron castle and Kyoto
The moment we arrived in Himeji from Hiroshima we could see the famous 14th century “white heron castle” also known as the “snow castle”, which is a Unesco Cultural Heritage site and regarded as a national treasure in Japan.
It is not very castle-like in the English tradition. It is more like a beautiful pagoda with elegant curving roofs and...
Why I am excited to be going back to Japan
Before going to Japan for the second time, I have been practising my origami skills.
I love the way a simple square coloured piece of paper can be magically transformed by a series of crisp folds into an object of surprising elegance and beauty.
In Japan, I am hoping to learn a few more paper-folding skills. But in preparation, I have...
Into Japan’s famous “hell valley” to taste delicious black eggs
We came to Owakudani, also known as the “boiling valley”, an active volcanic area of Hakone, south of Tokyo, to see Mt. Fuji from a boat on Lake Ashinoko, a crater lake formed by the volcanic eruption in 1170.
However, the weather did not cooperate and clouds obscured the shy mountain and we were forced to entertain ourselves with other...
Fun start to Japan tour with visits to key Tokyo sites
My Japan tour got under way with a walking tour of the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku followed by a fun welcome dinner at a yakitori restaurant.
Kabukicho is the entertainment district, sometimes compared to Amsterdam’s Red Light area, but with a lot less accent on “love shops” and more emphasis on restaurants, bars and nightclubs.
This is partly why Kabukicho...
Time in Kyoto’s exquisite temple gardens and fun food market
To start our first full day in Kyoto, we went to Ryoan-ji Temple, mainly to see the beautiful and famous raked gravel and stone courtyard garden.
The garden measures only 25m from east to west and 10m from south to north and contains 15 stones, or at least you are asked to see if you can see 15 stones as...
Could this be the biggest dahlia in the world?
Giant dahlia at house in Kyoto
Over the years, I’ve seen dozens of dahlias, big and small, in all sorts of gardens here and abroad.
But I was surprised to see this gigantic dahlia growing in gardens in Japan recently.
The one in the photos here was growing at...
How I learned to make a perfect Japanese origami crane
Origami crane in the Japanese style
It was a thrill for me when I was in Japan recently to receive two spontaneous lessons in origami from complete strangers.
In the process, I learned two terrific techniques - one, how to make a very different crane, what I now...
Lessons in peace and mercy in Hiroshima and Miyajima
The first place we went when we arrived in Hiroshima was to the site where the atom bomb exploded at 8:15 in the morning on August 6, 1945.
Today, there is a small monument on the street next to a hospital, directly below the sky where the bomb exploded about 600 meters above ground, instantly killing 80,000 people, many of...
