It's probably difficult to understand how two cities standing over eight thousand kilometres apart could be linked by nature...but they are. Adelaide, Australia and Himeji, Japan share a bond of...umm, family I guess, as the two cities are considered sister cities, and a garden forms a physical connection.
This relationship began on April 19th 1982 when the ancient Japanese city of Himeji and the not-so-ancient Australian city of Adelaide became sisters and to symbolize the bond of friendship between the two cities the Himeji Garden was created in Adelaide and opened in April 1985. I think it's nice considering not all that long ago the two countries were fighting a brutal war in the Pacific during World War Two.
The garden itself was devised and created by way of a joint-effort between local specialists here in Adelaide and the Kumada Gerdening CO. LTD. of Himeji; the result of the collaboration is a lovely garden on the southern fringe of the Adelaide CBD in which locals and tourists can come to find peace and in which to reflect.
There's two styles of Japanese gardens represented here. The senzui style (lake and mountain garden) and the kare senzui (dry garden) and (unfortunately) my images don't do it justice...but will give you and idea at least.
While I was at the garden recently I met the head gardener, one of the three who tend the gardens seven days a week, and we chatted.
It's specialised gardening and he and his team are incredibly passionate about it. I commented that it would be an amazing place to work all day and he just grinned and nodded in agreement. I also commented about the lack of signage letting people know it was there, a small easily-missed sign is all there is, and he told me he's happy with that, keeping it somewhat a secret suits him as large numbers of visitors can be detrimental to it. It's certainly somewhat of a secret as I have yet to meet anyone who has even heard of it...including myself until a few days ago.
I enjoyed my time in the garden and taking the time to wander around and to sit in contemplative reflection; I found myself relaxing, letting go of thought, stress, worry and concern all of which were replaced with a sense of inner peace; nature has that effect on me anyway, but here it seemed more easily found. It was a nice moment and one I'll repeat at these very gardens again soon.
Thanks for scrolling through my images; feel free to comment if you'd like or maybe tell me about the place where you feel centred, where you're able to find peace through the release of life's stressors, worries and complexities.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
[Original and AI free]
Every image in this post is my own.
My Samsung S22 Ultra smartphone was used to capture these images.