The Kotoji stone lantern from Kenroku-en garden

Of the Three Great Gardens of Japan (Nihon Sanmeien), these days I visited my second, the Kenroku-en in Kanazawa, called the "Garden of the Six Sublimities".
There are many beautiful sights here, but the most representative is this stone lantern located on the northern side of the Kasumiga-ike Pond. It wasn't easy to take a photo, because the place is continuously crowded by people taking their pictures in front of it...

Why is it so famous? This lantern is an unusual version of the typical snow-viewing lantern (Yukimi-dōrō), because it has only two legs (one in the water and one on land), while the Yukimi lanterns are usually made with three or four legs. This unusual shape is said to look like a bridge on the traditional Japanese instrument koto, hence its name: the Kotoji lantern...