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An oasis in a noisy and bustling city
Place: Hamarikyu Onshi Garden Location: Hamarikyuteien, beside Shiba-Daimon Date & Local Time: 10 September 2009, 10:48 am
Note: This is a really beautiful garden. Me and Dad are following the itinerary suggested in Frommer's guide. Going to this garden was a real surprise. We never expected a place of calm in such a busy and noisy place. In the middle of the garden is a huge water way that runs through it. A recereation of a teahouse that used to stand there was built. It is really elegant and I hope I can bring Mom there for tea. This depends on how much time we have on Sunday. You can have tea and some sweets for 500 yen. I saw other tourists sitting on the mats as they look out in the water.
There were at least three tea houses in the garden, and all of them were burned during an air raid in 1945 by the Americans. The existng tea house is really beautiful and it breaks my heart to think that something so precious was lost. The only signs of the other two teah houses are wooden stakes with a board showing a picture of these structures on the locations where they once stood.
We also stopped to get some drinks from a hut decorated with cloth banners that have calligraphy. I took a picture of this hut as I thought it was really cute. We really don't have food outlets like this in Sydney. Next to it is an open wall shed, also built in a traditional architectural style. What I love about Japanese architecture is that it is solidly builty, yet it is very elegant and graceful.
Dad and I continued walking around the garden and we came across three grassy mounds of soil, which is a bit taller than I am. Each one had a wooden wall that had two slits as holes. There was also a box on the right with a hammer. Based on the english text and the drawings, these mounds were used for duck hunting by the royal family who used to have a holiday residence in the garden.
Behind these mounds are trenches that would have water and the hunters would try to attract wild ducks. This mound was used to check if there are ducks in the trench and if there wasn't any, the wooden box would be hammered like drum to attract them. The drawings also showed that men with hawks on their hands would line both sides of the trench. They would then let thew hawks swoop down to get the ducks. They would then be followed by men who hunted using nets. It was really interesting to get a glimpse of the lifestyle of royalty during the Edo period.
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