Koko-en garden in Himeji is the most beautiful Japanese garden I have visited. Every angle provides great photography opportunities with reflections in the water playing a big part in this.
There is a large koi pond where a school of koi fish is clearly visible. One of the areas beyond the bridge has large stones to hold back the adult koi, whilst the fingerlings (juvenile fish) can stay safe in this pond.
The garden is walled off from the street and very peaceful and quiet. My only regret is that I didn’t have a very long time to visit this garden as we needed to catch our train back to Kyoto.
The ticket price can be included in your ticket to Himeji Castle for ¥1050, or you can buy it separately for ¥310. The gardens and Himeji castle are a reasonable walk away from the station.
Thank you for your question @AdamGT we spent around 1 hour at the gardens, but we didn’t realise how extensive they were and ended up having to rush the other sections of the garden (we had train tickets booked so we had to leave). The castle took around 2 hours total from the wandering around the grounds to climbing up and then back down.
