Hello everyone!
Last Saturday’s morning we had a photowalk in the Japanese Garden of Buenos Aires. We wanted to organize a meet up that day because @FaridTDF was in the city, he wanted to do a photowalk and we chose the Japanese Garden as, besides it being a great place to take beautiful photos, that Saturday was one of the 3 days per month that the entrance is free for Argentines and Argentine residents.
Without counting me as I created it, 5 of the 9 people who signed up attended: Farid, @ValeriaA_, @santiagoirale, Norma and Daniel. The last two aren’t members of Connect, as far as I know.
Farid’s son, Maximiliano, also joined us and Norma came with her family, that spent some time with us too.
It regularly hosts events like Manga and Kendo-Dō Workshops, Haiki contests, Taiko shows and more.
The garden is full of flora typical of Japan, like Cherry Blossoms, and many trees of South America and some other places. It has a lake too, with many Koi fish. It also has it’s own restaurant, a gift shop, a plant nursery, a reading room, a tea house and an event room.
We met at 10 am in the entrance called Hokkaido, waited some minutes, and decided to start as some else came they could easily join us.
As the sign reads, the garden is accesible. There are some brigdes that aren’t, but I believe that all of the areas can be accessed in some way by everyone. As soon as we entered we quickly started taking photos. We took photos all through the Flat Bridge, the Sakura (Cherry Blossom) path, the Chasitsu tea house, the Food Court and Memorial to Japanese Immigrants Efforts. We also saw two cats and took some photos of them ?
As we were going to the restaurant we met Norma and her family, who had arrived a bit after we started the photowalk. As we were talking, a tour guide told us there was going to be a guided tour about to start, so we decided to go to the tour instead of the restaurant, and went back to the Hokkaido entrance, where it started.
Of course, we continued taking photos on our way there:
On the tour, that lasted around 40 minutes, we learned plenty of things about the garden, Japan and it’s culture and traditions. Here are some things that the guide explained:
- The tea house of the garden is the only public tea house in Buenos Aires, and doesn’t have a single screw. It was imported by pieces, and then set up there.
- Many trees in the garden were there before it was founded, including a canadian pine.
- The Japanese Peace Bell on the garden is rung once a year, every International Peace Day. It was donated by the Japanese World Peace Bells Association, and is a copy of the one in New York City, which was donated by the Japanese to the United Nations.
- You are supposed to wash your hands, in an specific order, and drink some water from the water fountain (called Chozuya) that’s near the tea house before entering to purify yourself. This is also done before entering temples.
- The tea house, the garden near it and the whole ambient of the tea ceremony should represent harmony, respect, purity and tranquility.
- Sakuras, called cherry blossoms in English, aren’t Japan’s national flower despite most people think it is. In fact, Japan doesn’t have a national flower.
- Cherry blossoms symbolize how beautiful, yet short, life is, among other things. They are widely celebrated in all forms of art like poetry, literature, or paintings. It’s a very old tradition to watch them flower, it’s called Hanami. As spiritual as it is, a lot of people just celebrate by sitting on the parks and drinking.
- The traditional Japanese gate, called Torii, is meant to represent a gateway to the sacred world, when you cross it your enter this world and purify yourself.
Throughout the meet up, Daniel also gave us more information about these traditions and Japan as he studied Japanese in Tokyo for 6 months some years ago.
Unfortunately, when the tour finished Norma had to leave us… but the rest of us stayed, and went back to the Food Court to have lunch.
After our lunch, we entered the main building, that has a small library, and exposition room and a balcony with has great views of the garden. To visit the exposition and the balcony you can use the stairs or an accesible elevator.
We first visited the exposition room, it usually showcases traditional and modern japanese products, but this time Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement) was being showcased.
After taking some photos there, we went to the balcony, took some more photos and talked a bit, enjoying the view.
When we left the building we went to some areas of the garden that were still uncovered by us, like most parts of the islands of the lake, a bridge, and the gift shop.
Darumas are dolls that despict bearded man, they are a symbol of good luck and perseverance. When purchased, both of the Daruma’s eyes are white, then the person who uses it selects a goal or wish and paint in one of the figure’s two eyes. Once the goal is achieved, the second eye is filled in.
At the end of the year, all the Daruma are brought back to place they were purchased from for a traditional burning ceremony. I’ve bought one on my previous visit to the park and filled in one eye, selecting the goal of graduating from university, so in a few years I will come back to the annual burning ceremony the garden hosts!
Despite it was raining a bit some times, it was a nice photowalk. It lasted 3 hours, yet we all agreed it didn’t feel like that much time had passed. It’s true that time flies when you’re having fun ?
You can click here to see our shared album of the photowalk.
Here’s a video with more videos and photos we took, that show more of what we did on the meet up:
The music from the video is called Cherry Blossoms, and was made by Derek Fiechter.
Thank you for reading!
pero al final pudimos recorrer el Jardin 
en forma completa,
, muy sabrosos,
, lo mejor fue charlar entre todos sobre lo que nos gusta de Connect y Google Maps. Gracias Jesi 
