Kenrokuen

Neal White in the last week

As with any tourist attractions in Japan, the earlier you go, the more enjoyable it is. Go before 9am. Overall, it's a very nice garden with some amazing old trees accented nicely with all the moss. You just have to appreciate it for what it is, this isn't a flower garden. I enjoyed my walk around the park (Mar. 2024) and would recommend it to others (if they go early, and avoid the crowds).

M Recommend in the last week

Considered one of the top 3 Japanese gardens. It's a vast garden with ponds, small hills, bridges and various trees including cherry and plum blossoms. Unfortunately my visit was between seasons ( winter snow, spring sakura, summer blooms, fall red leaves) so it's not super spectacular. Nevertheless it's still a nice stroll walking around the beautifully landscaped garden and appreciate the Japanese aesthetic. Admission is 350 yens for adults.

Moh 3 weeks ago

Absolutely gorgeous garden; from the entrance to the exit and even the bridge and path leading to the garden, all expertly manicured foliage and pathways. Worth whatever the ticket price was, less than 500¥ if I recall correctly. Went during a rainy day, loved it. The ripples that danced across the ponds as the raindrops fell, the wind gently blowing the ropes that held up the many branches of various trees, and the softer crunch of the stones in a water soaked ground, simply beautiful. Despite the rain, there were still many people, all were cool and no one disturb the peace and tranquility of the garden. There was a bus full of guided tourists, majority were respectful but a good number of them were rather loud and obnoxiously made their way through the garden. No problem though, I simply grab a seat at a bench near the pond, watched a few indecisive ducks struggle to choose sitting on land or float in the pond, and after a few minutes, the crowd moved quickly through the garden, following the red flag their guide waved as they were lead further into the maze of a garden. Aside from that one bus load, only a few people remained; this was around 3:00pm to 4:45pm. I was fascinated by the support system in place for the trees, I failed to read any of the plaques that may have explained why this is done to some trees, but just by observing you can make sense of it and draw your own conclusions. My educated guess was the trees liked slinging mud at the guests by digging their branches into the earth and flicking wads of mud around. So a system of rope and stilt restraints were designed to prevent the mischievous trees branches from reaching beyond a specific limited range of motion, rendering them incapable of slinging mud. Hope to visit again when it snows, I imagine that would be a beautiful scene.

Dominic Noone 2 months ago

A fantastic garden worth visiting. Impressive layout and flora. Calm and peaceful too. Travel tips: it's on a hill and gets windy. We went on a cold wet day and was glad to be wearing the wet weather gear.

Felita Gutana 3 months ago

Went here long time ago. Weather wasn't good, rainy, so the place kinda empty. Very spacious, must be pretty if the weather is good. our local & non local guide recommended the gold ice cream here, expect a lot, turned out it was an edible gold foil on top of a vanilla ice cream 😅