Japan trip: Osaka - Shitenno-ji

Shitennji in Osaka

The roof spines of temples and castles in Japan usually end with wing like structures.

At first I thought these were Egyptian influenced designs, but later we were informed that these are meant to symbolise fish tails which is a charm against fire. Temples and castles in Japan are often built mainly in wood.

A bronze dragon guardian, his head is shiny from all the rubbing he gets from visitors :)

The roof tiles of various temples in Japan usually end with different flowers. For Shitennoji it seems to be the lotus. The ends of the wood beams are also decorated extravagantly.

Lanterns offered to the temple by devotees hung in the walkways. What a beautiful sight it would be to see them all alight at night.

The Shitennoji Pagoda - 5 levels. Each floor is filled with small and large bronze Buddha statues offered to the temple by devotees.

One of the gates into the Prince's Chamber - the sign apparently translates to "the cat's door to Prince's Chamber"....a huge door for the cat... @_@

The pagoda is still visible from further away. The nine rings symbolise royalty and high status of buddhism.

The gravel zen garden is raked each morning by the temple's monks, unfortunately I was not able to capture its full beauty on the day.

Last garden photo trip before Japan

Wind, rain, and a southern highland garden

A garden called "Chinoiserie" filled with various types of peonies and other flowers. It was worth the visit even with the non-stop rain and wind. The garden wasn't big, but the graceful peonies and the overwhelming crab apple tree flooding with flowers took my breath away.

I've always liked to photograph flowers and leaves with droplets of water, but this is my first time taking photos in pouring rain (thanks to my dad who was holding an umbrella over me and my camera all the way). It was cold and my hands kept shaking, there wasn't enough light due to the overcast, but in the end I'm still happy with quite a few shots.

We only visited one out of all the southern highland open gardens this time due to the horrible weather, but I am determined to go back another time to take more photographs of these beautiful gardens.

Nature's beauty

By simply stepping into the garden, I can feel the beauty of nature in every flower petal and every leaf blade. I only wish my camera is able to capture some of this beauty and preserve them for more than a season.

New spring flowers~

The tulips are on their way out but in their place, new shades and colours are capturing our attention.

The weather hasn't been great for us over the last couple of photo shoots and most of the images turned out less than satisfactory, still I'm glad we managed to capture some of the new blooms from the garden.

Explosion of Colours @ Botanic Garden

How a few days of warm weather and sunshine can change the bare stalks and flowerbeds!

Everywhere we went there were new tulips (among other flowers) on display. The boldness of the reds and oranges, the intricacies of the shaded purples and pinks, the endless whites and yellows, in various poses and styles, compete for the attention of our cameras...I wish we could spend more than just one lunch hour during each visit.

First attempt at adding 10 pictures at the same time, I wonder if the server can handle this :P

Garden in the last week of July