These are two statues that were first erected when the area was developed.
They're Egyptian to recognize the origin
of gardening in the Egyptian Nile Delta.
This is a Japanese Garden of Contemplation. There are certain key
elements to look out for here, such as the kind of paradise element; this is a miniaturised, a very abstract version of nature.
So everything here is very tightly controlled, and yet, represents something in nature. So some people like to think of this as
a miniature landscape. You might say that the moss here is like fields, you know like we're flying across the fields.
The other thing to look out for in the Japanese Garden of
Contemplation is the rocks and the rock placement. Have a look at the three rocks. When you look at them they don't look like much
special but they are a classic kind of Confucian arrangement; where the two little rocks are bowing to the big rock there, which tells
you something about respect for authority and respect to your elders. So there's coded messages in the garden, which it gives you a lot
of pleasure and is fun to try and deconstruct or decode.
The Japanese garden tries to create something like an abstract version of nature. For example, if look at the trees. See how the branches
are all trained to be straight out there and the trunk is curved; you look at very, very old pine trees they actually do that by themselves.
But this is a very young pine tree but it's trained to look old. We don't want something that's a hundred feet tall because that would be out
of scale with the garden. So Japanese gardens are a bit like Bonsai: it's trained to look very,
very old and very big, but actually they're quite young and they're quite small.