Fusion of Japan and Australia

Yesterday I met a close friend for lunch. That was super special. We have the kind of friendship that I don't have to waste time on the superficial, but can dive right in and know that there's not going to be any issues with that!

After that soul-refreshing time I went for a short walk around a nearby Japanese garden with my camera. The idea of a Japanese garden in Australia is quite interesting to me, after having lived in Japan and spent time in some of their very old gardens. Japan really takes gardens to another level! (Here's one of their top three gardens that we visited a couple of years ago. Here's an inner city one I visited on my own last year.)

Anyway, I haven't been to a Japanese garden in Australia for a long time. Here's what I found: a fusion of Japan and Australia.

The garden is called "Nerima Garden", a celebration of a sister relationship between Ipswich (where we are living in Australia) and the city of Nerima (which is only about 2 km from our house in Tokyo).

Our house is at the "pin" and you can see Nerima marked between there
and Tokyo city central.

But actually it is only about 2km between our place and the western border of
the city of Nerima.

This is quite a typical looking Japanese garden scene. It looks quite different to Australia in general, especially because it is so green and Australia really is very brown and dusty at present as we experience a significant drought.

They have a traditional tea house, which of course was locked up, but by getting close to the glass, I managed something of a photo of the inside. The floor is just like the floor in our  bedroom and lounge rooms in Tokyo. I'm sure the smell would have cast me into homesickness!

This method of paving paths is very much a Japanese style.

The fusion: this isn't a plant usually seen in a Japanese garden! I believe it's a member of the Xanthorrhoea genus and is pretty common in Australia.

In the middle of this Japanese garden were some huge eucalyptus trees. Something you'd never see in Japan. However it was surprisingly hard to get a photo angle that showed both Japanese and Australian elements (possibly would have been better in the morning or on a cloudy day).

Here you can see a gum tree and bamboo.

The gum tree (eucalyptus) with the Japanese-shaped bushes and the tea house.

Back to Japan, here's the tea house with some bushes shaped very much like they would be in Japan. I found the Australian sun is very strong, even on a spring day, it made photos with strong contrast between shade and sun difficult to take well. This year is the first time I've used a "fancy" camera in Australia.

And then a couple of Aussie lizards were sunning themselves, they're pretty flighty, though, so I only got one or two photos of this one.

Azaleas were out. These you see in Japan and Australia. They are used as hedges in our city in Tokyo.

A different angle on the pond and "lantern feature". 

The garden was walled, just like many Japanese gardens are. 

Just outside I found the gorgeous bottle brush. Also had fun trying to figure out the right manual settings to use, but I was happy with the result in the end.

This is bougainvillea, a prolific non-native in Australia (from South America, I believe). We once had one right next to our driveway and it needed constant trimming, because it not only grows fast, it's got nasty thorns. But in the right place it is a gorgeous plant. 

I've had little time to go wandering with my camera in nature, so this half-hour was a delight. I hope you've enjoyed this little excursion too.