Can't Make it From Texas to Japan?

The Japanese Garden in Fort Worth is strikingly beautiful and can help visitors experience the beauty of Japan if they can't achieve international travel. 

Try the next best thing. The Japanese Garden at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden will offer you the beauty of the Japanese aesthetic without requiring an international flight. 

Filled with beautiful foliage and examples of striking Japanese architecture, I toured the Japanese Garden because I was studying Japanese in one of my classes. The idea of the trip was to achieve cultural immersion, so to that effect, we viewed the Asian Art Exhibit (which contained several Japanese pieces) at the Dallas Museum of art and capped off our trip with a meal at a hibachi restaurant. 

The garden was far and away my favorite part of the trip. I love exploring places of great natural beauty, and the sense of peace that pervaded the garden definitely had me feeling like I had tapped into some higher form of consciousness — one where I could spot and appreciate a sense of beauty that differed from the aesthetic I had been raised to enjoy.  

I love that feeling. 

Trails loop through the garden, along with bridges, water, beautiful flora — it's an experience not to be missed, all for the low, low cost of $5.00 for admission. 

Close to the entrance of the garden was a traditional Japanese rock garden. 

And you can feed the fish. Oh, the fish. 

The ponds in the garden are filled with hundreds of Koi, which, being used to people, are quite tame. They will even swim up and take food from you. Bring quarters to buy pellets. I didn't and had to beg quarters off my friends, because I'm secretly a five-year-old trapped in a twenty-one-year-old body, and feeding fish is awesome.

They literally eat out of your hands. In fact, with enough patience, you can manage to pet the fish. I managed to pet several, an experience both novel and slimy. 

If you're in the DFW area, go and get your zen on!