Monday 13 April 2015

Midori waterfall, Japan

A lovely waterfall postcard I received from Japan earlier this year. I really like the stamp and the special cancellation, too.


The text on the back of the postcard says this is Midori waterfall. The rest of the text is in Japanese and unfortunately I only know some very, very basic Japanese so I can't read the text and thus have no idea what it says. Trying to find info online was a bit tricky, too, but I did find this website, which had the following information:  

In order to restore Renchi-tei Garden, which was destroyed by the great fire of the Horeki period, the 11th lord Harunaga created this waterfall in 1774, at the same time as he built Yugao-tei Teahouse. 

From the "Harunaga Diary", we know that he was very demanding of the gardeners, asking them to redo their work several times. The result was a grand waterfall measuring 6.6 m. in height and 1.6 m. in width, which had a lot of water and produced a loud sound. The water crashes down onto the rocks below, and flows into Hisago-ike Pond. 

It was designed for visitors to enjoy not only its appearance, but also its sound. The trees around the waterfall that produce beautiful red autumn leaves are various types of Japanese maple that were especially selected for their subtly different shades of red. 
 

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