Our Man in Japan I

29 March 2012

Steve is undertaking a research trip to the far east.  For the next few weeks we'll be featuring some extracts from his correspondence.  Today he writes from Kyoto, the former imperial capital of Japan:

'I’m enjoying all aspects of Japan; the people, the landscape and gardens, the food, the art and both the emerging modern, and persisting traditional cultures that seem to coexist so well.  I am lucky to be in Kyoto with our good friend, the artist Mr Kashu Yabuta, and our interpreter, Mai; they’re able to reveal some of the subtleties and secrets of the Japanese garden.  I have met with garden design professors from Kyoto School of Art and Design, and also with garden makers, one of whom is the eighth descendent in a family of gardeners who have cared for the gardens at the Temple of Nanzen-ji.'

Moss & shadow in the Edo Period gardens of Konchi-in, a sub-temple within the complex of Nanzen-ji