A brief stop in Miyazaki City, on the way to my new home Miyakonojo.

My journey from Fukuoka to my new home of Miyakonojo had me transferring through Miyazaki city, where I needed to change trains. I had some time to fill in between trains, so I went for a bit of a wander.
Immediately in front of the station was a lovely garden area with a fountain.

Palm trees, colourful flowers, blue skies, I could get used to this.
I’m already used to this. I was born for this.
I continued on, passing by the fountain.

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Before long I found myself on a lovely green, leafy boulevard.
I should mention that I arrived in Japan in June. This particular day was June 18. Summertime. Which meant (fairly) hot, low to mid 30’s C, and humid. The average humidity for the month of June is 82%. And I loved it. The leafy branches of the trees stretched over both the road and the footpath, providing shade and a noticeable cooling effect in the summer heat radiating from the concrete of the city.

While strolling along the boulevard, I came upon a small traditional style garden.

In general, I find having parts of a view hidden preferable, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the hidden parts require exploration, there is mystery, as you move around you discover, and it is this which I love.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely also love sweeping vistas, and wide open views with expansive ocean, or an open sky.
With this small garden, I walked only steps along one of the curved paths and a small pond with a curving stone bridge was revealed.

Even, just going down that little cobbled section in the foreground opens up a completely different view.
The large rocks placed in the pond, the way the plants are arranged and meet the edge of the pond.

Again, a different edge of the small pond yields large, vertical rocks in the foreground and a layered branches of a carefully pruned tree reaching out over the water in the background.

From another edge of the small pond, there’s a small stream or conduit running into the pond and the way the rocks are placed makes the pond seem to flow around in a large curve, more akin to a river than a pond.

There is no real continuity as far as specific order of sections of the garden which is best to see, I merely wandered around. As will be seen, I doubled back and looked in different directions from same spots. I am uploading these photos in the order that I took them.

There was a solitary gardener whom I saw in a mossy section.

Next up was my introduction to Japanese carp.
From the ages of nine to eighteen I lived in Mildura, a regional city on the Murray River (Australia’s longest river!). The Murray River long ago had European carp introduced into it which stir up silt as they feed along the bottom of the river. My Grandfather had as a youth canoed along the Murray and the water was clear then, but long before my time living there the carp had changed that.

I decided to play around a little with the zoom on my camera. Try and focus a bit on elements within a scene, rather than a wider landscape.

Here’s a 1,2,3 zoom.

Okay that was pretty boring, I won’t do that again.
A few last photos of the small stone bridge from a different angle, wide, then focused on large stones in front (with a bonus orange fish).

It was time to head back to the station, so I headed off down the boulevard. Oh, look! It’s City Hall.

Oh, look! People.

Oh, look! Some guy. One more photo.

And that was my first taste of Miyazaki City. Little did I know that I would be back in a few weeks to fill in for a fellow teacher for a month or two.
For now though, it was time for me to walk back to the station, hop aboard a local train, and travel through some true countryside on my way to my new home in Miyakonojo.