I visited many gardens/parks in Osaka and Kyoto, including historic garden, temple garden, urban park, and neighborhood park. I would like share some of my experiences and thoughts about these gardens, including their cultural background, design methods, styles, and elements utilized in the gardens.
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One of the gardens I visited in Osaka is called Garden Island Forest. It is in plaza around Umeda Sky Building, which is located in the central business area of Osaka. This garden looks like two islands floating on water, connecting by bridges. As shown in the map, most of the garden is not accessible, except the path which is shown as white in the map. The garden use water and stone as design element, trying to create a quite, green spot in urban area. This garden remains me Byrant Park in New York City – they are similar in size and both of them are a rest spot located in urban area. They also have many differences. For instance, although both of them mean to create a rest spot in urban area, they have difference approaches. The Garden Island Forest is to create a beautiful view while Byrant Park is to create a space for programming; the formal is to create a picturesque image, while the later is to create interaction between people and space. I am not saying one is better than the other, but I thinking it is very interesting to see the different choice of approach under different culture.
(a view of southeast corner of the Garden Island Forest.)
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One of the temple gardens that deeply impressed me is the garden in Ginkaku-Ji. Not only the temple garden itself, I think the whole design of Ginkaku-Ji – from the entrance and the foothill to the peak – is a great example of Japanese landscape design. Starting from a narrow path, called Philosopher’s Path, at foothill, the building style started to be brick wall and tile roof to follow the architecture character of Ginkaku-Ji. Walking along the Philosopher’s Path for a few minutes, I arrived the main entrance of Ginkaku-Ji.
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This photo shows the main hall of Ginkaku-Ji. The plants are kept low and well-maintained. I heard that Japanese traditional garden needs a lot of maintenance, now I realize that it need much more than I thought. During my visit, I say at least four staffs wearing special socks to stand on mosses to sweep fallen leaves away, so that the garden looks clean and mosses are healthy. A negative example is that in Tofuku-Ji, another temple in Kyoto, the mosses are exposed under strong sunshine and high temperature, some of them are dead and turned brown, which ruins the sense of the garden.
(moss in Ginkaku-Ji) (moss in Tofuku-Ji)
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Another place that is very famous in Kyoto is Fushimi-Inari Taisha, which is famous for its thousands of shrine gate, called torii. The Fushimi-Inari Taisha is composed of thousands of toriis, so that the whole mountain becomes a big shrine. All the shrines are donations by local people. The donation is between $30 to around $15,000, depending on the size of the torii. Each donated torii will be erected one by one along the path. 
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Some design elements that I would like to share:
A view in Garden Island Forest. The metal fence looks very elegant.
The sewer cover in Osaka. The building is Osaka Castle.
I really like the combination of hedge, bamboo fence, and stone base.
And a very tired visitor under torii, after walking for 2 hours on the mountain.
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