Rikugien Garden 六義園

Last Sunday we made use of the glorious sunny weather to look around our ward a bit more... with the aid of the tour guide booklet that Greg found (previously mentioned HERE) and we headed off to a garden which he had been interested in seeing... Rikugien [六義園] - 6 poem gardens; A National Historical Site depicting scenes from famous poems. It cost a mere 300 yen to get in (and there are discounts if you are a junior high student, OAP or in a group)

It was quite busy, with lots of people enjoying the lovely views on a sunny day, even if the sakura [桜] trees weren't yet in full bloom...we even saw a camera crew filming a sakura tree which had bloomed a little earlier than its neighbours.

The main star of the hanami [花見] was a weeping sakura, with banners proclaiming the night-time veiwing festivities that would take place when it will be in full bloom.

It's quite a big garden and we took a leisurely walk around, stopping mainly to look at the feeding frenzy at the edge of the pond.

The koi carp have definitely made a connection between people standing at the edge of the water and a high probability of feeding. They always amass by bridges and where they can see people standing by the water side. We watched massive koi push ducks and a poor little turtle out of the way to fight for the food being thrown in. The koi often ended up mouthing other koi heading for the same bit of food when they missed the target. The little black ducks managed to dash in some times and grab bread before the koi managed to attack, but the poor little turtle was always bullied out of the way by the swarm of koi. At one point he was pushed completely out of sight, and only managed to surface after a long submergence quite away from the melee.

Some photos for your delectation.....