Rikugien (Gardens)

This weekend Tokyo received a rare heavy snow, driving most people indoors and photographers out. Rikugien, near Komagome, is one of Tokyo's nicest gardens and typically not crowded due to its location and lack of renown. It dates back to the Edo era, and became a public garden in 1938.

Nature in Japan is venerated, as long as it is ordered and in some way satisfying to people. A Japanese garden is exquisitely sculpted to look "wild", but in a tightly controlled way. The truly wild and unruly in nature are far less highly regarded; mainly they are feared. This is understandable in an island nation historically subject to earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. It has also contributed, along with the rush to industrialization and a system biased toward big construction projects that distribute government funds in rural areas, to serious environmental devastation around the country.