📷 Quiet Corners of the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden

Still pond at the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden with green and early yellow tree reflections and floating autumn leaves in Sapporo, Japan.

Continuing on our Everything Here is so Peaceful Tour, we visited the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden close to Sapporo’s city center. The 32-acre facility has gardens and lawns serving scientific and educational purpose but it’s also just a really nice place to take a break. 

  • Small stone bridge over a narrow stream along the walking trail in the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden.
    Crossings made for wandering.
  • Still pond at the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden with green and early yellow tree reflections and floating autumn leaves in Sapporo, Japan.
    Reflections settle into stillness as autumn begins its slow arrival.
  • Walking path covered with yellow autumn leaves surrounded by tall dark tree trunks in the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden.
    The path writes its own season.
  • Small pond partially hidden by grasses and plants, resembling a field at first glance, in Sapporo’s Botanic Garden.
    Not a field — a pond disguised in green.
  • A single orange-leafed tree stands out against a bright green lawn and dense foliage in the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden.
    One tree decides to go first.
  • Two large dark tree trunks with a hollow opening in one, fallen yellow leaves, and a distant path in the Hokkaido University Botanic Garden.
    Trees tell the longest stories.

Established in 1886, it’s the oldest facility at Hokkaido University and Japan’s second-oldest botanical garden, second to the Koishikawa Botanic Garden at University of Tokyo. the Botanic Garden preserves a small part of the forest which formerly covered the Ishikari Plain. In addition, there is an alpine garden, a greenhouse and a small Ainu museum.

Naturalist’s Notebook
hand drawn magnifying glass

Look Up

Every so often, stop and look above you. Notice the way the trees touch (or don’t), birds, wires, and whatever else has been outside your field of view.

hand drawn ear

Make a list of sounds

In your notes app, or in a notebook, make a list of the sounds you hear during your visit. Be sure to include sounds made by living and non-living things, humans and human-made things.

hand drawn question mark

Use a frame

Sometimes the view is just too big. Using your fingers, like a film producer, or a cutout that you make yourself, try tooking at the scenery through a frame. Slow down and see how the composition changes with movement. What do you focus on that maybe you missed when your view was unfettered?

Posted In: Sapporo, Japan, Sightlines, Tracks & Traces

Keep Exploring