This Memorial Day weekend, I visited our local Japanese gardens for some peaceful walking around and photography: Boca Raton has a very little known connection with Japan - in the 1910s and 20s a colony of Japanese farmers came to South Florida and started a farming community - the Yamato Colony. ; It briefly flourished before a series of disasters and prejudices sent them packing - a bad hurricane and anti-Japanese government maneuvers meant failure, death, and return to Japan. ; There were still remnants of their history here, including one of our primary east-west streets named 'Yamato Road'...and a patch of land that was held onto by one final remaining Japanese farmer, George Morikami. ; His land was taken from him at the outset of WWII, and turned into an air force training base (now Boca Raton regional airport, and Florida Atlantic University campus)...and after the war, George purchased land on the Boca Raton/Delray Beach border and continued successfully farming for decades. ; In the early 1970s he died, and donated his land to the city, which was founded as a park and memorial gardens...known as one of the finest in the country and lovingly and authentically maintained in proper Japanese style and landscaping. ; All Japanese holidays and festivals are celebrated there, a great restaurant is on-site, and lots of art and history collections are on display or guested in the museum. Was playing around with my newer lens on my NEX-5N - the Voigtlander Nokton 35mm F1.4.
Great shots Justin and I love the history lesson. ; When I do make it down there for some shooting, we'll have to go there.
Absolutely - there are a lot of neat little places around here if you ever make it down - the wetlands for wildlife, Morikami, the beaches, Boca Hotel (Mizner-built), and other little things like that. ; Even just people and boats and exotic cars!
