Japanese garden “Nihon teien” has been highly acclaimed inside and outside Japan as a garden that express Mother Nature and the religious ideas and world views of the Japanese.

Unique to Japanese garden is the ”mitate” technique (“mitate” means to see an object, not in the form that was originally intended, but as something else.) A pond is seen as an ocean, and a mound and large stones are seen as mountains.

The famous gardens include a “shinden-style” (aristocratic mansions built in Heian-kyo) residence and its associated gardens at Saga Daikakuji temple, the “karesansui” (literally dry landscape, which is a common type of garden suggesting mountains and water using only stones, and sand or gravel, and occasionally plants) at Ryoanji Temple, and Japanese-style strolling garden at the Katsura Rikyu (Imperial Villa).

karesansui garden;  example of dry landscape garden