Details of Jindai Botanical Garden

Can you tell what time it is?

A modern drinking fountain. On the other side is a faucet where you can wash your hands. See the wet grate on the ground? That is the drain.

The blossoms on this manhole cover are sakura. The leaves are gingko. There is also a bird on it. Click to enlarge.

Camelia

Camelia is a winter bloom. Camelia trees usually bloom in Tokyo in January. These trees at Jindai Botanical Garden in Chofu, Tokyo look like they are just getting started.

Ume Trees

This is the side of a bridge that leads to the section of ume or Japanese plum trees at the Jindai Botanical Garden in Chofu, Tokyo. These are branches of Japanese plum blossoms. Note the shape of the petals. Sakura blossoms are different. Sakura or cherry blossom trees may bloom in March or April. We'll have to listen to the cherry blossom reports on TV.

Some of the Japanese plum trees were blooming. Most of the trees weren't.

Some blooms are dark pink almost fushia. Some are light pink or white.

This take or bamboo grove was next to the plum trees. Bamboo and Japanese plum blossoms are an auspicious combination. They are considered lucky.

Note: ume is translated as Japanese plum or apricot.

Pomegranate Tree

There were several pomegranate trees in a grove of crape myrtles at the Jindai Botanical Garden.

Monkey Slide Trees in the Winter

These trees are called saru saberi in Japanese. It can be translated as "monkey slide or slip".

You can tell why. The trunk and branches look slippery. We call these crape myrtles in English.

The big old trees are gone. I remember this grove having huge trees. I remember thinking that in the winter they looked like sculptures.

This is the trunk of one crape myrtle. Our old house had a piece of crape myrtle trunk on the tokonoma, the decorative space in a washitsu (a room with tatami mats as flooring). A beautiful piece of wood is used as one of the side beams of the tokonoma.

These trees were at the Jindai Botanical Garden in Chofu, Tokyo.

Tree Protection

Though it doesn't snow much in Tokyo, these pine trees are draped in rope to prevent the limbs from breaking. I don't know what stands beside them, but those three plants are completely wrapped in straw. Click to enlarge the picture and try to find the fish lips.

The Grove of Peace in Winter

The Grove of Peace at Jindai Botanical Garden was planted with seeds from other countries. That's what the sign says.

This tree was planted from seeds that came from North America. I saw mostly sakura or cherry blossom trees from Japan in this area. I'll check again when I go back for cherry blossom viewing.

Sakura Trees in Winter

A path of straw was made through some of the sakura trees.

In a month or two, these trees at Jindai Botanical Garden in Tokyo will be blooming. These trees are pretty young, but they already have wooden poles to support some of their limbs. Sakura trees can get really big. Some of their branches get really heavy and need support.

Here's a nice place to sit. Blossom viewers, however, will prefer to sit on plastic sheets under the branches.

Flower Protection

In the peony garden only three plants were protected.

On closer look, I saw that they already had buds on them.

Jindai Temple Again

The wooden ramp was still over the stone steps at Jindai Temple today. There will be a daruma festival March 3 and 4, so many people will visit the temple grounds. This is also the season for ume blossoms. People will go through the temple on their way to the Jindai Botanical Garden to view blossoms.

The view from inside the gate.

A detail of the thatched roof gate.

A display of prayer beads, small statues, and incense. The small statues are bought and then placed on an altar to pray for babies and children who have died. To respect privacy, I didn't take a picture of the altar.

For 200 yen, you can grab your future. You stick your hand through that hole in the plastic top of the box. You select one of the many small envelopes. There is a fortune in it as well as a trinket.

The koi or goldfish pond on the temple grounds.

Kids Web Japan-- daruma

The Way

On the way back to the temple from Jindai Botanical Gardens.

A little farther down the hill. There's a small soba shop on the right.

The stairway to the pet cemetery. That's a tree trunk coming out of the side of the stone wall.

A soba mill at the top of the hill. It is grinding soba flour.

A rain chain outside this soba shop at the top of the hill.

Soba Shop

Detail of another soba shop down the hill (below the temple). That yellow sign tells children that it is a "safe house". If they're lost or having trouble with strangers, they can go there. Shops and homes display those signs.

Click on the picture and you can see more detail. There is a scale on the counter to weigh soba.

More Temple Treats

These are glazed plums in small cone dishes. There are slices of mikan (orange) in some of them.

Soft cream is sold here. Mochi wrapped in a leaf is being steamed.

Pickles.

A crispy snack made with flour.

Dried Plum

This is a package of dried plums, umeboshi. Dried plums are very sour. If there is a section of white rice in an obento, a dried plum is usually put on top of and in the center of the rice. Papa said that was the heart of the obentou.

Sometimes, dried ume or ume paste is put inside onigiri, rice balls.

Family Restaurant: Place Mat & Toothpick

If you have read this blog for a while, you may have noticed that there is a lot English everywhere here. Some foreigners call it "decoration English". This is a paper place mat from a family restaurant called Royal Host. It says that it is "printed with soy ink" and it used "waterless printing naturally".

See the black square? If you hold a cell phone up to that, you can visit the restaurant's website. That is a Monarch butterfly sitting on a rudbeckia. There are no Monarchs here, but I have an old pot of rudbeckia. They come up every year.

The toothpicks are individually wrapped.

Look at how much effort went into making these toothpicks! Most toothpicks are like this here.

Setsubun

Displays of soybeans appear in stores near the middle or end of January for Most of the soybeans are in packages like the one on the right. There were free masks near them. Dried soybeans are thrown outside the entrance to scare oni or bad spirits away.

This is what our family does:

We throw beans outside the entrance and say "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi" or "Bad spirits out, Good luck in". We do it three times. Jiji used to jump into the doorway wearing the mask when we opened the door. He would try to dodge the beans as we threw them at him. After he passed away, I was the oni! We now just throw the beans outside.

After the fun of throwing them out the door, we throw beans inside the entry hall and say it again. We do that three times, too. Baba throws beans out some of the windows, too. From the leftovers, we eat the number that corresponds to our age. In other words, if you're ten years old, you eat ten beans. This bean throwing custom is called mame-maki.

On the left is a package of soybean stems. There is a mask inside. Some people buy these to put near the entrance. Oni don't like soybeans because people throw them at them. Supposedly, they will stay away when they see these stems at the door. Those green leaves are pointed, too, and will poke the eyes of the oni. Another reason for them to stay away.

Kids Web Japan-- setsubun.

More Mochi

No, these aren't chocolate kisses. They are mochi with anko, adzuki bean paste, on the outside. A small plastic cake "fork" came with this. The top part of this "fork" has the shape of bamboo.

People use this kind of utensil to eat Japanese cakes. We used it to pick the mochi up to put on our plates. We used stainless steel western-style dessert forks to eat them. We drank green tea with them.