Ro Ho En Japanese Friendship Garden, located in Phoenix, Arizona, is a lovely spot to spend an hour or so. It is only 3.5 acres, so it does not require a lot of time to visit. The hours of operation are different throughout they year, with the garden closed for the months of July, August and September. The cost of admission is $7/adult, $6 for Seniors, $5 for military/students, free for children under 6. The garden hosts tea ceremonies once a month for $30/person, private ceremonies can be scheduled as well. They also offer a variety of workshops. For additional information, you can check out their website.
Cherry Blossom Tree at Ro Ho En
The majority of the garden is a man made pond, which is filled with koi, turtles and ducks, surrounded by a walking path. We had a few hours after our plane landed and before our hotel room would be available, so we decided to spend it at Ro Ho En. If you are just interested in taking a stroll around the lake, you will need less than an hour. However, there are benches to sit on to relax and enjoy the environment for as long as you desire. Although the garden guidelines state the garden is supposed to be walked in silence, as a meditative experience, during our visit, it was full of young children whose ability to be silent seemed to be non-existent. We were not bothered by it at all, as we weren’t doing all that great of a job remaining silent either.
Waterfall at Ro Ho En
At the farthest point of the park you will find this waterfall, as well as the tea house. The area around the tea house is behind a locked fence and is only open for people participating in a tea ceremony. Although I have been to several Japanese Gardens that are much larger in size, I have never been to one with so many koi and the opportunity to buy food to feed the fish (and the ducks who will clunk the fish on the head with their bill to try and get the food).
Hungry little suckers!
You can buy a bag of food for $1 at the entrance. There are over 500 koi in the pond and they will come swarming in mass for anyone who has food. You might think they were starving the way they were jumping on each other trying to get the food, but they are all quite a healthy size and with all the people who are there feeding them, the odds of them actually being hungry seemed quite small.
Feed me, feed me, feed me!
You will get splashed if you get too close. Once they realize you are out of food, they will swim off in search of another friendly, food laden visitor. I have to say, they were quite entertaining. Although they don’t look really cute with their mouths wide open, there was an amazing variety of colors and sizes of fish. We have a koi pond in our backyard, so whenever we happen upon one, it always gets our attention. Of course, our pond has 10 fish, not 500….but they do look just like the picture above when they know you have food.
Koi Pond at Ro Ho En
From this vantage point you can get a good idea of the size of the fish. The water really does have a green hue to it, reminiscent of the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day. We speculate that the color is caused by the amount of food that gets added every day to the pond.
Our visit was quite a delight, we stayed for approximately an hour and a half. This would also be a great spot to visit if you have a few hours before you need to get to the airport for a flight home, as it is located approximately 10-15 minutes from the airport. When we were finished, we headed over to the Arizona Biltmore Hotel for lunch while we waited for check in time to arrive. Tomorrow’s adventure included a visit to Saguaro National Park, which I had been wanting to visit for a while. As always, wishing you happy travels and fantastic adventures in this thing called life.
(All pictures are available as Fine Art Prints or Digital Downloads for purchase at full resolution through Alamy. If you see something you like, click on the link. If you are unable to find it, use the Contact Me page and I will make sure the image is available.)
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Admiring the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you provide.
It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while
that isn’t the same old rehashed material.
Excellent read!