Thursday was judging day for the Taikan Bonsai Exhibition. Julian Adams and I first went with the tour to visit the Ryoanji Temple, where I caught him selecting seed. We then took a taxi to the exhibition.

Julian Adams picking ripe seed from small leaf Japanese maples.

All the vendors were busy setting up their trees, containers, supplies, suiseki and other items necessary for the creation, maintenance and appreciation of bonsai. I saw Kenji Oshima, son on Mikio Oshima and congratulated him for winning the Prime Minister Award for the upcoming Japan Creator’s Bonsai Exhibition in early December. He was proud of a special display of one of his client’s trident maple bonsai.

Award winning bonsai artist, Kenji Oshima, Meiju-en Bonsai Garden in Okayama in front of his client’s display of Trident maple bonsai.

The first round of judging the bonsai was to select the finalists for the award selection…

Our Tokyo hotel lobby is on the 25^th floor. The entire wall behind the front desk is a plate glass window with an unbelievable view of Tokyo Tower and Mt. Fuji. Our group saw Mt. Fuji leaving S-Cube, and now this morning upon our check out from Tokyo. Looks like our group will be returning to Japan, perhaps on our February tour (no, sold out), but there is room for our new June tour to visit the colorful Satsuki bonsai festival and exhibition.

We spent all morning at the Shunka-en Bonsai Museum of Kunio Kobayashi in Tokyo. English bonsai artist Peter Warren who apprenticed with Mr. Kobayashi for six years warmly greeted us and gave us free reign of the complex and allowed us to photograph. Later on he gave an excellent tour, in English, which most people understood, especially the Australians. Corin Tomlinson, from England who apprenticed with…

After a two hour delay and airplane evacuation in Chicago due to tornadoes, we finally arrived in Japan for our semi annual bonsai tour led by Kora Dalager and me. This time we have a good small group of eleven people including two ladies from Australia.

Moving one of the February Kokufu bonsai ten exhibition prize winning trees to be loaded for display in the Taikan Bonsai Ten exhibition in Kyoto. This bonsai belongs to a client of Masahiko Kimura.

Beautyberry and Firethorn bonsai in the container room.

Tuesday we first visited Masahiko Kimura’s garden, near Omiya, by our private bus. As always, his bonsai are spectacular and although I’ve been visiting his garden for over 30 years, the trees looked the best this time. Our tour enjoyed glorious, warm sunny weather, and the bonsai took on a special glow, which reflected their unique beauty as well the tender loving…