Japan, March–April 2007

Sunday 8 April

More gardens in Tokyo: first, Kyu Furukawa, a house built in the "English style", with both English- and Japanese-style gardens; then the Imperial Palace East Gardens; and in the afternoon the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, where half of Tokyo seemed to be enjoying a Sunday picnic under the cherry trees.

Kyu Furukawa, an English country house in the heart of Tokyo, complete with formal rose garden.

The Japanese garden at Kyu Furukawa ...

... with several fine stone lanterns among the trees.

Contrasting colours: maple, cherry, oak.

Here, much of the blossom had already fallen.

Typical street scenery: lines of ginkgo (or, in this case, plane) trees ruthlessly but very carefully pruned, and a forest of telegraph wires.

Azaleas, in the Imperial Palace East Gardens.

Staked trees in the palace gardens.

Crowds picnicking in the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.

Another part of the garden. There must have been thousands of people there, but there was plenty of room for everyone (and not a single piece of litter was dropped by anyone).

On our final evening in Japan, our group had dinner together.

Monday 9 April

To Tokyo's Narita Airport for the flight back to Heathrow.

From 35,000 feet up, the bizarre landscape of Eastern Siberia looked in places almost like a Zen garden on a cosmic scale.

Somewhere else in Siberia (which took us over five hours to cross) we passed over these colossal mine workings.

Back home, the trees in our garden were starting to blossom.

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