Okayama - Koraku-en Park

Koraku-en Park is one of the three most celebrated landscaped gardens in Japan (the others being at Kanazawa and Mito). Commissioned in 1687 by Ikeda Tsunamasa, the local feudal lord, and completed in 1700, it is a typical example of a pleasure garden of the school of Kobori Enshu (1579-1647). Within an area of 28 acres it contains tea pavilions, pools, waterfalls and numbers of pine, maple, cherry and plum trees. The backdrop to the garden is formed by the Castle, beyond the river (Tsukimi Bridge), also known as "Crow Castle" (U-jo) on account of the black coloring of its walls. Of the original 16th C Castle there survive only two outer towers; the rest was rebuilt in 1966 after its destruction during the Second Wolrd War.