The Three Great Gardens of Japan (Nihon Sanmeien) are the Kanazawa Kenroku-en, the Okayama Koraku-en and the Mito Kairaku-en, photographed here. All three are amazingly beautiful gardens, but they also have in common the fact that… they have meaningful names.

The name of Kairaku-en comes from an old Confucian book (The Book of Mencius), and means “garden to be enjoyed with people". And truthful to the name of the garden, the lord of Mito, Tokugawa Nariaki, who established the garden, opened the garden for the general public, a very unusual move for an era when these amazing gardens were kept only for the lords and their guests…

Kairaku-en, Mito

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Yesterday’s Japan Photo: Old and new architecture, Kokura Castle and RiverWalk Kitakyushu