Koi and turtles

At the weekend I was in a beautiful japanese garden called Hayama Shiosai Park. Hayama is the nearest town to where I live and by the way the a favored vacation place of the Emperor and the Empress. The beautiful garden, which will be featured in a later post used to be part of the imperial villa.

Today I just want to show you the Koi that live there. Koi are domesticated carps with color patterns resembling goldfish. They come in tons of color varieties and are not afraid of people at all. I spent about an hour, hanging out with them and taking photos.

One of them even came partly out of the water several times. Suddenly two employees of the garden showed up to feed the koi. They made a sound, by knocking against the food container several times and the kois and turtles came rushing from everywhere. When the guys started to put the food in the water a real feeding frenzy took place.

Different varieties of koi.

Does it get more japanese than this? Actually Koi come from China…but who cares.

Friendly turtle.

Koi and their turtle buddy.

I want to get out of the water.

Feed us!

Taming koi.

This fellow must have read “On the origin of species”. At least he came out of the water all the time. I will check on him over the summer to see if he grows legs.

Petting the wannabe amphibian.

The masters of the koi.

Feeding frenzy.

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Tags: Koi turtle Hayama Park Shiosai Garden