What a lovely surprise. In the middle of pretty much nowhere Florida on the east coast are beautiful Japanese gardens that are bound to ease your mind and elevate your spirits. On a lovely sunny morning, the familia set off to explore the gardens, and with the white fluffy skies and the green surrounding the qi-flowing lakes, there was no better morning to hope for.
Here’s about the gardens from their official website :
Visitors are surprised to discover a century-old connectionbetween Japan and South Florida. It is here that a group of young Japanese farmers created a community intended to revolutionize agriculture in Florida. In 1904, Jo Sakai, a recent graduate of New York University, returned to his homeland of Miyazu, Japan, to organize a group of pioneering farmers and lead them to what is now northern Boca Raton. With the help of the Model Land Company, a subsidiary of Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railroad, they formed a farming colony they named Yamato, an ancient name for Japan.
Ultimately, the results of their crop experimentation were disappointing and the Yamato Colony fell far short of its goals. By the 1920s, the community, which had never grown beyond 30 to 35 individuals, finally surrendered its dream. One by one, the families left for other parts of the United States or returned to Japan.
One settler remained. His name was George Sukeji Morikami. A modest farmer, George continued to cultivate local crops and act as a fruit and vegetable wholesaler. In the mid-1970s, when George was in his 80s, he donated his land to Palm Beach County with the wish to preserve it as a park and to honor the memory of the Yamato Colony. Together with his friends, neighbors and the Palm Beach County Department of Parks and Recreation, George’s simple dream took on a new dimension. With the opening of The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, a living monument was created, building a bridge of cultural understanding between George Morikami’s two homelands. Expanding on the original vision, The Morikami will continue its mission to preserve, protect and interpret Japanese culture and the Japanese-American heritage.
Shall we take a tour around the gardens?
Impressed? I know I was. And to think that this is in Florida.
Aside from the gardens, there’s also an old Japanese house showing off Japanese culture and introducing a bit of Japan…
Do not miss this if you’re in the area.
ehmmmmm, honestly, I can’t see any special things in this garden but good photos.
hmm… sounds like something a Chinese would say about something Japanese.
no,,,really not that, you are too sensitive;-) are you japanese?
not Japanese, but i am a garden…