Kyu-Furukawa part two, the Japanese stroll garden and tea house, 5th May 2019

After exploring the quite amazing collection of roses planted on the terraces of the formal garden surrounding the house at Kyu-Furukawa we walked down a flight of steps into a wonderful shady Japanese stroll garden. Tokyo is so built up that normally you never notice hills or slopes but in this garden you really drop down a pronounced slope from the house to find a pond shaped like the Kanji character for heart surrounded by trees and shrubs. Then off to one side in a fenced of glade there is a tea garden and tea house where for a few extra yen we could enjoy a bowl of matcha and some Japanese sweets.

Kyu-Furukawa part one, an English rose garden in central Tokyo, 5th May 2019

A couple of km North of Ueno in built up Tokyo nestling on a hillside just off a busy street there is an oasis of green in two parts. Higher up the slope there is an English style country house with a formal rose garden built around 1917 and designed by Josiah Conder . Below that in a tree filled glade and surrounding a pond is a Japanese style stroll garden and a smaller tea house garden.

Firstly some photos of the house and rose garden, it was very popular with Japanese visitors, rather strangely given it's western appearance there was no English language guide leaflet available.