Active Tours - Tour Designers Office
http://www.activetours.co.jp/en/
Mobile Website
Mobile Website
Active Tours
2-3-7 Yahatacho, Musashino, Tokyo 180-0011
TEL：0422-38-8026
FAX：0422-38-8036
TEL：0422-38-8026
FAX：0422-38-8036
006270
“Bonsai” is Japan’s traditional cultural arts originating in the Kamakura Period (12th C.).
It expresses the beauty and spaciousness of a natural landscape, and to create these landscapes more beautifully than Nature can! It is said to be a Never-completed Art, enabling one to pursue the pleasure of everlasting nurturing. Sensitive feeling of the Japanese toward the change of four seasons fit Bonsai Art.
We feel the same vision streaming in the depth of “Japanese Garden”. Traditional Japanese landscape gardens can be broadly categorized into three; “Jodo style” (Paradise Garden),
“Kare-sansui style” (Zen Garden/Rock Garden), and “Roji style” (Tea Garden).
The art of Japanese Garden is closely associated with the art of architecture, with elements of stones, water, trees and small accessories. They were used for the spiritual rituals and objects of worship, not designed for the beauty of gardens.
14-day Tour;
Visiting Bonsai Gardeners and the representative Japanese Gardens in Saitama, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Shimane & Hiroshima. Your approach to Japan through gardens will give you something additional impression.
It expresses the beauty and spaciousness of a natural landscape, and to create these landscapes more beautifully than Nature can! It is said to be a Never-completed Art, enabling one to pursue the pleasure of everlasting nurturing. Sensitive feeling of the Japanese toward the change of four seasons fit Bonsai Art.
We feel the same vision streaming in the depth of “Japanese Garden”. Traditional Japanese landscape gardens can be broadly categorized into three; “Jodo style” (Paradise Garden),
“Kare-sansui style” (Zen Garden/Rock Garden), and “Roji style” (Tea Garden).
The art of Japanese Garden is closely associated with the art of architecture, with elements of stones, water, trees and small accessories. They were used for the spiritual rituals and objects of worship, not designed for the beauty of gardens.
14-day Tour;
Visiting Bonsai Gardeners and the representative Japanese Gardens in Saitama, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Shimane & Hiroshima. Your approach to Japan through gardens will give you something additional impression.
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Omiya Bonsai Village
Known as one of the most outstanding bonsai cultivating areas in Japan, visitors take delight in the bonsai in all seasons as they change from one season to the next. The village is located in Omiya where there is good soil with clean water and fresh air, and fit for nurturing bonsai. Annually the village holds the “Great Bonsai Festival” from 3 ? 5 May.
Known as one of the most outstanding bonsai cultivating areas in Japan, visitors take delight in the bonsai in all seasons as they change from one season to the next. The village is located in Omiya where there is good soil with clean water and fresh air, and fit for nurturing bonsai. Annually the village holds the “Great Bonsai Festival” from 3 ? 5 May.
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Kenroku-en Park, Kanazawa is a superb example of landscape art of the type that was in vogue among Edo-period daimyos.
“Snow hanging” begins from November every year to prevent breaking branches of the old pine trees under the weight of the snow, which presents another face to the garden.
“Snow hanging” begins from November every year to prevent breaking branches of the old pine trees under the weight of the snow, which presents another face to the garden.
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Daisen-in, Daitoku-ji temple, features beautiful rock- gardens, considered among of the best examples of their kind. The vertical stones represent towering mountains and islands divided by white sand waterfalls and streams which appear to flow through to the temple's other gardens before emptying out into an expansive ocean of white gravel.
The Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi, Shimane prefecture, Japan is renowned for its gardens as much as for its collection of modern paintings, particularly the work of Japanese painter Taikan Yokoyama. Adachi Zenko, the museum's founder, traveled all across Japan, collecting pine trees and rocks for the landscape gardens, and put his heart and soul into their creation. The six gardens, with about 165,000 square meters in total, show you various sceneries by season. You can enjoy the beautiful harmony of nature through art.
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Day 1
Narita Int’l airport arrival | Tokyo |
Meet and greet by a licensed guide and transfer to Tokyo. City tour, visiting Asakusa (Senso-ji & Nakamise) and Tokyo National Museum. (Tokyo)
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Day 2
Tokyo |
Visit “Shunka-en Bonsai Museum” to have a lecture demonstration. Then city tour, visiting Imperial Palace Garden, Meiji Shrine, and including visit to the Shops of Bonsai goods. (Tokyo)
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Day 3
Tokyo | Omiya (Bonsai Village) | Tokyo |
Full-day tour to Bonsai Village in Omiya, where a group of professional bonsai gardeners live and consists of about ten privately owned bonsai gardens. A number of bonsai devotees visit there from all over the world.
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Day 4
Tokyo | Kanazawa |
Leave for Kanazawa by JR train via Nagoya. The castle town Kanazawa, in Edo era, was a town of great cultural achievements, rivaling Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo), under the Maeda clan, the second most powerful clan after the Tokugawa. (Kanazawa) |
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Day 5
Kanazawa |
Full-day tour of Kanazawa, visiting Castle and Kenroku-en Park, enjoying fabulous Kaga-cultures. |
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Day 6
Kanazawa | Kyoto |
Leave for Kyoto by JR train. Upon arrival, city tour, visiting Kiyomizu Temple, Kinkaku-ji Temple, and others. Dinner at “Rakusui”, famous for its gardens designed by Jihei Ogawa, a pioneer of contemporary gardeners. (Kyoto) |
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Day 7
Kyoto |
Full-day tour of Kyoto, visiting temples having traditionally valuable gardens; Ryoan-ji Temple (Rock Garden), Daitoku-ji Temple (Daisen-in and Zuiho-in), Nijo Castle (Garden) and others. Enjoy Tea-ceremony experience. (Kyoto)
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Day 8
Kyoto |
Visit to Shigemori Mirei Garden Museum, one of the most famous contemporary landscape architect and historian of Japanese gardens. Afternoon, visit Entsu-ji, famous for “Shakkei-garden (borrowed scenery)”, a masterful technique of garden design that merges the surrounding natural scenery into the own garden, and Koke-dera to visit unique moss garden. (Kyoto)
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Day 9
Kyoto |
Full-day tour to Uji, to visit Byodo-in. The garden is typical Jodo-style of the Heian Period, being designed to recreate paradise on earth. Uji is green-tea producing town famous for Uji-cha. (Kyoto) |
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Day 10
Kyoto | Yasugi | Matsue |
Boar on JR train to Yasugi via Okayama. Upon arrival, visit Adachi Museum of Art, renowned for its gardens as much as for its collection of modern paintings, particularly the work of Japanese painter Taikai Yokoyama.
Its garden tops the list of Japan’s finest gardens by “Japanese Garden Journal” for 6 years running. Then, visit Matsue Castle, the Lake Shinji and beautiful coast line of Daisen-Oki National Park. (Matsue) |
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Day 11
Matsue |
Visit Izumo Taisha (shrine). Afternoon free at leisure. Iwami Ginzan (Silver Mine, the World Heritage) will be an interesting visiting spot as an optional tour. (Matsue) |
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Day 12
Matsue | Hiroshima | Miyajima |
Transfer to Hiroshima over the Chugoku mountainous area by coach. Upon arrival Hiroshima, city tour visiting Peace Memorial Park and Museum. Then transfer to Miyajima by ferry. (Miyajima)
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Day 13
Miyajima | Hiroshima | Kobe |
Visit Itsukushima Shrine, and going up to Mt. Misen by cable-car. Unspoiled nature remains at Mt. Misen, where has been long believed as the mountain where Gods live.
Then back to Hiroshima by ferry to take JR train for Kobe. (Kobe) |
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Day 14
Kobe ? | Kansai Int’l Airport
(KIX)
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Transfer to Kansai International Airport by ferry from Kobe Port.
Tour ends at airport. |