Trees and Ponds, "Water Garden" in Nasu Highland

Even though, the "Water Garden" seemed like a natural landscape, it actually was a man-made garden.

The garden was created in 2018. It was designed by Junya Ishigami who has received lots of awards including the Japan Institute of Architecture Award and a new architecture prize, the Obel Prize, which noted that Water Garden was regarded as an "influential idea that could redefine the future path of architecture."

It is said that the Water Garden was originally forest, which first became rice paddies, the next pastures and then became a current form of the garden with 318 trees and 160 ponds. 

I Go To 'Trick Art Museum' in Nasu #2

The walls of the museum were painted beautifully and illuminated in the evening.

I Go To 'Trick Art Museum' in Nasu

The ’Trick Art Museum' is a kind of an amusement park. You can enjoy walking around here and there, looking paintings, finding out tricks and taking pictures.

Breakfast and Midnight Noodle Soup

 

Every dish was elaborately wrapped with thin plastic film or capped with a plastic lid.

Hotel lodgers had to wear plastic gloves while taking dishes from food counters back to each table.

It seemed to be against the environmental protection movement.

But the ways of eating food at a hotel were well considered to avoid COVID-19 or at least to reduce risks of infection the disease.

The hotel served Chinese noodle soup to lodgers who wanted it at midnight.

Every Alpaca Has Its Name

Some of them seemed smiling, thinking, eating or sleeping.

To my surprise, the face of all alpaca were very different each other. Don't you think so?  

I Go to an Alpaca Ranch

 

I went to an alpaca dude ranch or an alpaca farm for tourists with my wife a couple weeks ago.

They kept over two hundred alpacas in their ranch.

It located in the plains at the foot of Mt. Nasu, to be exact, Sanbonyari Peak at a height of 1,917m.

According to the web site, those alpacas were imported from Andes in southern Peru in 1999.

They were very cute and obedient.

All photos of today's post were taken by my wife, Kiyono using her smartphone.

I Go to Minami-gaoka Stock Farm to See Cows

The stock farm located in Nasu highland was open for tourists. They ran restaurants, a kids' park, a small zoo and souvenir shops. Cherry trees still had flowers there.

 A herd of dairy cattle stayed relaxed. We could walk around the ranch freely.