Yesterday the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition was closed to switch out all the bonsai masterpiece. and replace them with a couple hundred new masterpieces. It will open in a few hours for Part 2. Also opening is the 6^thJapan Suiseki Exhibition, where I’m an exhibitor and member too.

Fuyo-en Bonsai Garden

I met some long time friends, Boon, from California, John Kirby from Connecticut and Data K.H. Chua, President of the Malaysian Bonsai Society at the exhibition and invited them to join me for my private visit to Omiya Bonsai Village.

My traveling buddies

When I was living and studying in Omiya Bonsai Village and needed to go to Tokyo for saikei, ikebana and chrysanthemum bonsai lessons it took a one hour train ride from Ueno Station to Omiya. Well, things have changed during the past 45 years and I’m always learning and discovering new things. We took a rapid train which only took 26 minutes, not the bullet train.

Camellia species with small, white fragrant flowers. Mine are also blossoming at home too, in a cool greenhouse.

We visited all the bonsai gardens in Omiya Bonsai Village and began with Mr. Takeyama’s garden Fuyo-en Bonsai Garden. Always a favorite stop for me. Saw some interesting trees and new techniques. His large Zelkova bonsai, considered to be the best in Japan has been recently cut back to maintain and refine the shape. I look forward to seeing its completion, should I live that long.

Mr. Takeyama specializes in deciduous, unusual varieties and forest style bonsai. This second generation gifted bonsai artist has hundreds of refined deciduous bonsai. Their twigs are extremely fine and can be easily damaged by cold weather, so he, or rather his apprentices, erected a temporary poly house over two of his growing tables for winter protection.

He also frequently travels to tropical Okinawa, an island prefecture in Japan, to teach bonsai where they grow non-winter hardy bonsai. You can often find great Bougainvillea, Ficus and other species not commonly found on the mainland Japan in his garden. At this time of the year they need winter protection and can be found in wooden boxes covered with blue tarps.

Mr. Takeyama also simply protects the roots of Japanese flowering quince bonsai in shallow containers by wrapping the pots with blankets for insulation. Other gardens in Japan do not do this, but they do not have the quality of bonsai which is found in Fuyo-en Bonsai Garden. It is important to remember that horticultural research has shown that the roots of many species are not as winter hardy as the upper sections of the tree.

I also saw many beautiful “root-over-rock” style Trident maple bonsai. But, for the first time I discovered a “trunk-over-rock” style Korean hornbeam. I have visited this garden hundreds of times during the past 49 years, in fact I lived across the street from there when I was apprenticing at Shoto-en Bonsai Garden. Although I now normally visit Fuyo-en Bonsai garden at least twice year I’m leading tours and occupied answering questions for visitors. Today’s solo visit was a treat and great learning experience for me which I can share with others during my teaching.

Root-over-rock Trident maple

Trunk-over-rock Korean hornbeam

Next stop was Kyuka-en Bonsai Garden where I studied in 1970. Mr. Murata, second generation, likes to grow more naturalistic styed bonsai and has lots of unusual and rare species, including cactus bonsai. His son, Yukio, is quite fluent in English and was busy selling Masakuni tools at the Ueno Green Club which remained open during the closed day of the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition. He always answers my difficult questions, often with the help of his father Isamu Murata, who was an apprentice here when Lynn Perry Alstadt studied at Kyuka-en Bonsai Garden. I remember the day Yukio was born while I was studying at nearby Shoto-en Bonsai Garden.

Seiko-en Bonsai Garden owned by 4^thgeneration Tomio Yamada always has refined masterpiece bonsai. Yesterday he was displaying a stunning and colorful cascade Winter flowering cherry bonsai in his unusual reception room. This was a real treat to appreciate a simple formal display indoors while hundreds of masterpiece bonsai were outside only a few away. Although one can see the trees outdoor in their necessary environment, true beauty is released and can be appreciated when displayed alone without distractions. That’s one reason I so enjoy visiting the Shunka-en Bonsai Garden of Kunio Kobayashi where he has designed and built a museum with over 12 display alcoves.

Sargent juniper

Pourthiaea villosa

Takahiro Kato’s Mansei-en Bonsai Garden was just around the corner at the end of the street. He is the 5^thgeneration proprietor of the garden and his great grandfather was one of the founders of Omiya Bonsai Village in 1925. Adam Jones, from Pennsylvania, studied here for years and married his Japanese sweetheart. They now live about an hour from Omiya and purchased over 3 acres developing Tree House Bonsai. He still comes to help his teacher’s son, Takahiro during busy times. He told me they returned home on Tuesday evening at 10 pm bringing back bonsai from the Part 1 of the exhibition and promptly left at 6 am to deliver another load of bonsai for Part 2. In the small protected work room were three large bonsai from Part 1 of the exhibition. The Kokufu Award winning Japanese maple in a large shallow antique Chinese container, the Trident maple I featured in the last blog, which was also a past Kokufu Award winning bonsai (once a tree wins this coveted award, it can’t win again,) and a Trident maple in the blue container I also posted in the last blog.

Adam told me he was going to transplant this Japanese maple from the shallow container back into its growing pot, which is three times the size. He took the tree out of the large pot last week and potted it into the shallow show container for the week. Now back to the growing pot.

The Trident maple in the blue container interested me. I saw it in the exhibition and liked its design. Where it was positioned against a solid wall it was impossible to see the tree from the side. The side view, as well as the rear view are quite interesting and educational for me personally, because I can get a feeling of how the tree was created. At Mr. Kato’s work room it was on a shelf sideways and I was amazed at the trunk movement from this side, which was not apparent from the formal front side displayed in the exhibition.

We looked around for containers for three of my trees and found two. So, Adam used his phone, took photos and sent them to Mr. Kato setting up Part 2 of the Tokyo exhibition. A while later, during lunch Adam text messaged me the prices. Mr. Kato will take the container to his sales area at the Ueno Green Club where I can pick them up. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get them home, unbroken… and how to pay for them.

A truck load of Kimura bonsai masterpieces destined for the Tokyo Dome Exhibition. This is Japan’s largest orchid show with over 200,000 visitors. Note the display tables on the top tuck shelf.

Yoshi Nakamizu, proprietor of Japan Bonsai Network owns the Omiya Bonsai Restaurant across the street from the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum, our next stop. As we were dining at his restaurant he came in with a client he was going to take to visit Masahiko Kimura. He offered to take us with him for a visit. Quite an unexpected surprise because it’s a bit difficult to get there on your own.

Mr. Kimura was home and allowed us to visit his bonsai and take a few photos. It looks like he is mass producing his artificial stone plantings with Sargent junipers. They are destined for the Chinese market. I still need one container for my special twin trunk RAF Dwarf scots pine. Well, I thought I found the perfect pot in Mr. Kimura’s workroom. He gave me a very good price for this valuable container. But he took it out for measurement and it and it was about two inches too large. I should have purchased it, perhaps for another tree, but it would be difficult to get it home, in one piece. Besides I still must pay for the two containers from Mr. Kato and am still on the quest for the pine pot which I’m preparing for future displays. Mr. Nakamizu returned us to the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum for a visit where we met up with Bjorn’s bonsai tour of 30 people.

Boon with one of Mr. Kimura’s latest creations. Note the new container behind the Japanese yew.

On the way to the train station we briefly stopped at Toju-en Bonsai Garden of Mr. Hamano. That’ where Mr. Kimura, Mr. Suzuki and my teacher, Mr. Komuro studied.

By the way, the reason this blog is so long is because my friend, Alan Adair, curator of the living collection at my International Bonsai Arboretum phoned me at 1:30 am to ask me a question and I never went back to sleep. I can easily sleep on the plane home in a few days. The writing of this blog required 4 hours, not counting several hours of photo editing last evening. I enjoy sharing my discoveries with people so together we can improve and elevate the art of bonsai. Now, it almost time for another Beard Pappa cream puff, orange and a couple of bottles of ice tea for breakfast before returning to Part 2 of Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition and the 6^thNippon Suiseki Exhibition openings.

By the way, I had to straighten the concave pruner in the first photo a little it was very crooked!

It never ceases to amaze me what I discover in Omiya Bonsai Village.

Xmas tree. And, I thought I was late taking our Xmas tree down on January 6th!

Mr. Takeyama selling packs of moss for $6.00

Not a typical home landscape in Omiya Bonsai Village

A traditional small corner in front of Seiko-en Bonsai Garden

All the bonsai were lovingly cared for all day long.

Part 1 of the 93^rdKokufu Bonsai Exhibition ended yesterday. Today, Wednesday, all the bonsai will be replaced with new specimens for the public to enjoy and study. For me, personally, it’s kind of like a new semester in my intense bonsai study. So, that must mean that today is “winter break” between semesters. What am I going to do on my day off? Take a couple of trains to Omiya Bonsai Village where I was an apprentice over 45 years ago.

Mr. Saito displayed one of his many bonsai, a past Kokufu Prize Trident maple.

Chojubai Japanese Flowering Quince

Dwarf Kumquat

Japanese Black Pine

Sargent Juniper

Japanese Red Pine

Siverberry

When the guides to the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition were handed out there was a slip of paper, or ballot for people to vote for their favorite two bonsai. This was only in the Japanese guide, not the English list of trees. We call that the People’s Choice, which I never liked or will do because I think it’s silly. People usually select a forest, or large bonsai or the tree with the most blossoms. The general public is not familiar with bonsai so their opinion is useless in the evaluation of bonsai. Yes, it shows what attracts them, however. For Part 1 of the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition the two bonsai the public selected was a Hinoki Cypress forest and a small mame bonsai composition. Mame bonsai are smaller than shohin bonsai and are slowly becoming popular in Japan. I was amazed they did not select one of the several beautiful fragrant Japanese flowering apricot bonsai. Perhaps, because they are common and now flowering in gardens.

Tsuyama Hinoki Forest people’s choice

Mame Bonsai Composition people’s choice

Trident Maple

Japanese Black Pine

Potentilla

Camellia

Although Japan has had a very long history of displaying and appreciating bonsai, they just started a People’s Choice event. Many decades ago at a Washington, DC convention, before Japan hosted the first World Bonsai Convention, Mr. Takeyama came up to me and asked why people were buying small pieces of paper and tearing them in half. He had never seen raffle tickets. Yes, at the first World Bonsai Convention in Omiya they had raffle tickets!

There’s one in every exhibition, even in Japan….

Trident Maple

I asked why there were ten fewer bonsai in the exhibition and was told they removed an entire row of trees and replaced it with a photo gallery AND the size of the display areas was increased 10 to 15cm each. That explains to me why there were not too many Satsuki azaleas displayed. They had the large poster images of the flowering Satsuki azalea bonsai on the posters displays thus adding color. I wonder if they will change the poster display for part 2? Oh, I did carefully count the number of bonsai displayed with suiseki. There were four and interestingly displayed near each other. Perhaps they were displayed by the same person, not the owner which are two different people.

Part 2 of the 93^rdKokufu Bonsai Exhibition begins tomorrow. Also opening tomorrow morning will be the 6^thNippon Suiseki Exhibition, also in the same building, but in the second floor Gallery.

Japanese Five-needle Pine

I wonder what I can learn today for my trip “back to school” in Omiya Bonsai Village….

The 93^rdedition of the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition is being held on February 9-12, 2019 in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno Park, Tokyo. This, the finest and most prestigious bonsai exhibition in the world has always been held in the same venue for 91 events. When Norio Kobayashi and Count Matsudaira starte d the exhibition in 1934 it was held twice yearly. The exhibition was stopped during WWII, then resumed on a yearly basis. Several years ago the exhibition needed to be moved to a nearby industrial building because the museum was being remodeled to become handicap accessible. The renovations created a smaller exhibition area with fewer number of bonsai being displayed. So, the Nippon Bonsai Association simply changed the show into two parts, thus being able to display more trees and also receive more exhibition fees from their members.

This year there was a noticeably, (for me at least who has attended most of the exhibitions for over 45 years,) fewer trees displayed. This was clearly evident with the removal of one entire row against a far wall and hanging large photos of blossoming satsuki azalea bonsai, with the cultivars in English too. This served two purposes, making wider aisles and adding color to a relatively winter bonsai appearance. The ten fewer bonsai was well compensated by the high quality specimens. I was NOT disappointed.

Also, there were a couple of other changes. The two special exhibits, one from the Imperial Bonsai Collection were moved and also the small room with shohin and medium size bonsai has been rearranged. A couple of nice little changes.

Silverberry

Japanese five-needle pine

Koto Hime Japanese Maple

Kokufu Award

Japanese Flowering Apricot

Kokufu Award

Japanese Maple

Kokufu Award

Sargent Juniper

2019 Part 1 Statistics

151 Individual Bonsai Displays(2018, 161)

97 Large Bonsai(2018, 116)

47 Medium Bonsai(2018, 41)

7 Shohin Bonsai Compositions (2018, 4)

19 Registered Important Bonsai Masterpieces(2018, 18)

3 Kokufu Bonsai Prizes(2018, 5)

“About” 4 Bonsai Displayed with Suiseki(2018, 2)

There may be more, I forgot to count carefully. I’ve only made one visit to this show this year. But, by tonight, I’ll have the entire exhibition memorized, and will need to start all over on Thursday for Part 2.

Japanese Red Pine, Important Bonsai Masterpiece, displayed by Doug Paul, The Kennett Collection.

Tsuyama Hinoki Cypress

Trident Maple

Shishigashira Japanese Maple

Japanese Black Pine

Unryu Boston Ivy

Japanese Maple

Japanese Five-needle Pine

Japanese Fine-tooth Holly

Japanese Five-needle Pine

Zuisho Japanese Five-needle Pine. I used to water and care for this bonsai when I was an apprentice in Omiya Bonsai Village in 1971-1972.

There are many stunning bonsai, several rock plantings which are not common in this exhibition. One interesting clinging-to-a-rock planting displayed on a flat black board with sand surrounding the stone. There were a few stray grains of sand, but I did not want to take the time to clean them up in Photoshop for this blog. As always, the best photos will be published in a future issue of International BONSAI.

Enjoy the photos, which we call “Bonsai Porn.” More photos tomorrow hopefully.

The 6th Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expo was held on December 1-2, 2018 at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, North Carolina. This unique venue is an elegant building, marble lined with a four story atrium, the tallest south of Washington, DC, even taller than the state capital of Georgia. All six of these events have been sponsored and well organized by Steve Zeisel who wants to promote bonsai in the region. Everything is free, admission, bonsai entries and even the vendor fees. He only tries to break even with the event, and he does with the generous donations from the vendors and friends during a benefit auction.

I’ve been fortunate and honored to participate in all six of the Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expos and have carefully studied all the bonsai, especially since I’ve been the judge for all of the shows. Each year the quality of the individual bonsai increases, but this year there was a tremendous leap ahead of all past shows. It was wonderful to see so much effort and creativity also put into the individual displays. None of the displays just included a lonely bonsai. They had accessories, companion plantings, other art, paintings, prints, scrolls and even a rusty old heater and bricks.

In fact, Steve added another award for the best display which was won by Tyler Sherrod with a Vine maple bonsai accompanied with a hanging scroll and small garden lantern.

Although this is a “Winter Silhouette” exhibition, evergreens as well as fruiting and deciduous bonsai were tastefully displayed. Some of the evergreen bonsai were in their winter color which added another dimension to the show. It would be very boring to see only deciduous bonsai. There were approximately 70 bonsai on display from throughout the southeast, Pennsylvania and New York. Each was a treasured gem of the exhibitor and meticulously prepared for show, just like in Japan.

There were four Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expo lecture/demonstrations presented by Rodney Clemons (Georgia), Tyler Sherrod (North Carolina) assisted by Matt Reel, Owen Reich (Tennessee) and William N. Valavanis (New York) assisted by Sean Smith who also judged the show and presented an educational constructive critique of the bonsai and displays. Three rooms were filled to capacity with vendors offering anything you could imagine for bonsai creation and appreciation.

I’ve attended and participated in numerous bonsai events around the world, and the North Carolina Research Campus is the most elegant and beautiful venue I’ve seen, truly. I always enjoy displaying and supporting this worthwhile and important event for bonsai in the United States featuring bonsai in their naked glory. I personally think the Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expo is rapidly becoming an American version of the famous Japanese Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition held in Ueno Park, Tokyo,Japan.

I look forward to next year’s Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expo on December 7-8, 2019. Enjoy my bonsai display photos of the event and the beautiful professional photos by Joe Noga. Additional high quality portrait photos will appear in a future issue of International BONSAI magazine.

If you can’t wait to see this beautiful venue, join us in June for the 2019 2^ndUS National Shohin Bonsai Exhibition.

I spent my fourth and last day of study at the Nippon Bonsai Taikan Ten. Each time I traveled through the exhibition new trees, companion plantings and display are discovered. After the exhibition and sushi, I return to my hotel to check the photos and adjust interesting images for digital viewng.

The crowds are large in the morning each day, then they die down after lunch time. Over 10,000 visitors are expected which is a bit larger than in the past exhibitions under the leadership of Shinji Suzuki, chairman for the event. There were several foreign tour groups from Germany, Italy and other European countries. Often they go through the exhibition then on to the sales area. But occasionally I’ve seen some foreigners actually studying the bonsai and photographing.

Each day I continue to take photos for this blog, my PowerPoint presentations and International BONSAI.Several bonsai I missed during the last four days were photographed today with my iPhone X Max. It’s a great camera, as you have seen.

As displayed.

I think this might make a better composition….

Although I’ve visited the sales area daily, today I spent a bit more time looking at the beautiful bonsai. Looking at all the great bonsai at bargain prices is teasing to Americans, because it’s extremely difficult to get the trees into our country.

Again I visited again with Gerald Rainville from the Vancouver, Canada area. Last week we saw him at work at Koji Hiramatsu’s nursery in Takamatsu where he has been studying for the past few weeks. He’s been wiring small shohin Japanese black pines. Mr. Hiramatsu first started Gerald with wiring older larger shohin pines with large trunks. Then he wired 60 smaller Japanese black pine bonsai. Perhaps he started with the older pines because they had already been wired and trained in years past. The new pines did not have much training and Gerald did the initial styling. Along with Gerald was Evan Marsh from Sydney, Australia helping customers and meeting new foreign visitors at Mr. Hiramatsu’s sales area.

Gerald Rainville wired 60 of these small Japanese black pine bonsai. Only two remain.

I hope you all enjoyed my trip to Japan through my blog as much as I enjoyed sharing the images and commentary with you. If you found the trip interesting, please consider joining Kora Dalager and me for our small size tour to visit the Kokufu Bonsai Exhibition coming up in February. Send for a tour flyer or check out my website at:

http://www.internationalbonsai.com/files/1708315/uploaded/2018%20AUTUMN%20TOUR%20FLYER.pdf

We will of course, also lead another tour to Japan next autumn to visit the 39^thNippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition. And, next year the exhibition will not fall on the Thanksgiving holiday and people can join us exploring Japan and return home in time to spend the holiday with family and friends.

Tomorrow morning I return to reality, and the upcoming forecast blizzard in Chicago on my way home to Rochester, New York. Then I turn around and pack up on Tuesday and Wednesday so we can leave for the Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expo on Thursday. This exhibition is held in an elegant venue covered with marble walls and floors at the North Carolina Research Lab in Kannapolis, North Carolina on December 1-2, 2018. Consider attending this superb FREE exhibition featuring naked bonsai. Along with other bonsai artists I’ll be presenting a demonstration and critique on Sunday morning. My Saturday afternoon lecture/demo will explore cascade style bonsai with new photos from this tour. And, of course there will be three rooms with vendors offering their finest plants, containers and more, just in time for Xmas shopping. I hope to welcome you to the Winter Silhouette Bonsai Expo in Kannapolis, North Carolina, just outside Charlotte. Check out:

https://www.winterbonsai.net

Bonsai artist Shinji Suzuki is chairman of this year’s Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition. I’ve attended about 30 of these exhibitions and this year, with Mr. Suzuki’s direction there are numerous changes. Some of the exhibition areas are much taller than normal. It looks like some of the rows are a bit longer because the space between the displays and side walls are much narrower.

Mr. Suzuki had two unique displays. His son Hiroyuki made tall, narrow, mysterious artificial rocks and planted them with small size Sargent junipers. The trees looked like they were hanging on to life on cliff edges. The main display was quite long and the title was “Back to the Source” featuring a moon in the background. There were numerous small lights highlighting the beautiful mountains. Perhaps Hiroyuki Suzuki learned how to create the artificial stones when he was an apprentice to Mr. Kimura.

Hiroyuki Suzuki

Additionally, Shinji Suzuki along with famous Chinese painter, Zhao Dun presented another display on the front side. Last year he displayed a powerful Sargent juniper in his display. Zhao Dun created a painting of the bonsai and a photo of the actual bonsai was hung below the painting. To the right three large artificial stones, also planted with Sargent juniper added to the effect. All that was missing was new age music. I have never seen such modern creativity in Japan. Personally, it reminded me of bonsai on display at a flower and garden show in the United States rather than a refined Japanese bonsai exhibition. I liked the two displays and spent some time contemplating their meaning. Go Team Suzuki!

Another new addition to was the large S-Cube Gallery of Seiji Morimae’s sales area in the exhibition area, in front of the vendor area. Mr. Morimae designed the display featuring seven alcoves complete with lighting. Five of the alcoves featured bonsai created by Masahiko Kimura and two with antique Chinese containers. Everything was well labeled, complete with prices, which were high end. Please note the small red tags which means sold.

The exhibition opened at 9:00am on Friday morning. By 10:00am ALL of Mr. Kimura’s bonsai were sold. And by noon ALL of the Chinese bonsai containers were also sold. The least expensive bonsai was $18,000. One antique Chinese container was sold at $180,000. Some are destined for China. It appeared to me the expensive items sold while some less expensive bonsai, containers and display tables remained, but there are still two days of sales remaining.

Opposite the wall of seven alcoves were more bonsai, some huge and several collections of beautiful containers. There was a great large Japanese grey bark elm bonsai which was actually sold while Mr. Morimae’s team were setting up.

At the end of the S-Cube Gallery was a wall with smaller suiseki and display tables, not necessarily cheaper. On the back side of the wall was another sales area featuring smaller and less expensive bonsai. Directly on the floor, on blue carpet, many new large blue glazed were lighted and for sale. All sold. Check out the red sold tags. The number of individual red tags on a container indicate how many containers of each style were sold.

A lovely young woman was selling artificial bonsai she made at the end of the long sales area. They were very realistic and the designs appeared to be well trained bonsai. The trunks are made if clay, and were a bit expensive. But they don’t need to be watered, trimmed or cared for, only periodically dusted. Perfect for many people.

The exhibition officially opened after the ribbon cutting ceremony at 8:40am. Politicians, Japanese bonsai dignitaries, a Chinese penjing collector and American bonsai bonsai leader cut the red and white ribbon to allow a crowd of visitors entry to the exhibition.

The Prime Minister Award was presented to a Japanese black pine originally created by Mr. Kimura.

There were a great number of Japanese and foreign visitors on the opening day, and most foreigners went directly into the huge sales area to get the “good items” before others. I seriously doubt Japan would sell out. However, Mr. Morimae did sell out before noon, and that report tomorrow.

There were six special displays including a one man showing from Mr. Kobayashi and Mr. Suzuki, more details tomorrow on Mr. Suzuki and his son’s displays.

Mr. Saito’s display featured Rough bark Japanese maples

Mr. Funayama’s display featured Japanese five-needle pine from Shikoku, Nasu and Azama.

Mr. Kobayashi’s displayed some of his finest creations including a famous Chinese quince from the collection of Yasunari Kawabata, a Japanese novelist and Nobel Prize winner in literature.

The displays were superb as were the individual bonsai. They looked much better formally displayed. The common display area entry fee is $500, while the larger alcove like areas with purple bunting were $1,000. One of the special displays cost $10,000.

Enjoy, time for me to return to the show.

The 38^thNippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition opens tomorrow, November 23 and runs through November 26, 2018 at the Miyako Messe Exhibition Hall in Kyoto, Japan. Shinji Suzuki is the chairman this year and the exhibition is special with several private displays. This is the 30^thyear of the Heisei Period, the current era in Japan. In October 2019 Japan will be enthroning a new Emperor which means a new era will begin. Therefor this will be the last Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition in the Heisei Period. There are several new changes and the entire layout is a bit different, many with taller display areas. Quite a bit of advertising has been posted on Facebook and Mr. Suzuki has been writing a series of articles during the past month in a major Kyoto Newspaper.

I’ve been fortunate to have attended and studied nearly 30 of these exhibitions and have seen many changes through the decades. Usually I’m allowed to watch the judging of this major exhibition which I find fascinating and learn so much watching the judges inspect and evaluate the bonsai.

This year I was not allowed to watch the judging because I was invited to actually be one of the 15 judges for the Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition. This is quite an honor for me being the first American to evaluate a Japanese bonsai exhibition and I feel very honored. I was not told until last Saturday when visiting Mr. Takeyama’s garden. Also, I was told to be at the Opening Ceremony tomorrow morning at 8:30. About 20 different awards were selected of the bonsai and suiseki. The judging took about an honor with a lot of walking back and forth evaluating the bonsai and suiseki. Today alone I walked 4.6 miles in the exhibition hall, yes even with a walking boot cast…. Nothing can hold me back when it comes to my bonsai passion.

In my first blog post for this tour I mentioned that I noticed a spectacular Japanese black pine in Mr. Kimura’s garden which was going to the exhibition. I did not photograph it because a better photo could be taken with a plain background in the exhibition. The bonsai looked like a winner to me, and it actually won the highest Prime Minister Award. Unfortunately, my photo did not process perfectly so I’ll try to photograph it again tomorrow.  By the way, nearly every photo in my blogs were taken with my new iPhone XS Max. With Joe Noga’s instruction through the years I’m slowly learning how to adjust the images, but can’t come close to working his magic. The blue, green, yellow, silver and black backgrounds are extremely difficult for photographing.

US $120,000.

US $18,000.

Seiji Morimae has a huge special display where he is selling masterpiece bonsai, containers, suiseki and other art, including several bonsai from Masahiko Kimura. I only had time to photograph a couple of the rock plantings and an award winning Japanese black pine. He already sold two of these large size bonsai before the exhibition even opened. They are destined for China.

More details from this special edition of the Nippon Bonsai Taikan Exhibition will be forthcoming. There are a great number of masterpiece bonsai and suiseki in the exhibition which will require me to spend the next four days of study here. By the way, the Japanese word “Taikan” means Grand View, and this exhibition is truly a grand view of the Japanese bonsai word.

Our group left Shikoku Island on the way to Kyoto on a train crossing the scenic Inland Sea which is dotted with many small islands. The weather was warm and sunny and the islands were quite picturesque. However, the bridge structure did not allow us to capture images without steel posts bisecting the views.

Of course, we had reserved seats, however we must have been in the kid’s clown car…. It was fun and colorful. There was only one other family group with a cute child, so we essentially had an entire private car. The kid was quiet too.

Once we arrived at the hotel we immediately departed for the Toji Flea Market, but not until I checked the sign which posted the ideal maple viewing times in the major garden temples. We timed it perfectly, as nearly every garden was “at peak.”

On the 21^stof each month there is a huge flea market on the grounds of the Toji Temple which is quite near our hotel across the street from the Kyoto Train Station. This is a major event for Kyoto, like the famous cherry blossoms in April and colorful red maple leaves in November.

Everything you could imagine is there for sale: delicious food, antiques, not so old antiques, tools, clothing, bonsai, containers, art, scrolls, more clothing, jewelry and much more.

Japanese hospitality runs through the Toji Flea Market, everyone is friendly and helpful and much of the sample food is edible. The entire grounds are packed with sales stalls and they even flow on to the main streets at the several entrances.

The prices seemed to drop as the afternoon wore on and just like bonsai conventions in the United States, many vendors began to pack up early ready to exit at the 4pm close.

The Toji Temple is an active Buddhist place of worship and we saw several religious ceremonies were going on. A refreshing change from looking at small trees and gardens. But, we will get back to the serious activities tomorrow.