Khoi Nguyen ENGL 100 D1/E1
Japanese Tea Garden Living in a dynamic world, people are overwhelmed with everyday tasks such as working and studying. Buildings are rising, cities are crowded, and nature is going far away from human life. Finding a natural park is the most difficult task nowadays. As a result, people are losing the senses of nature and becoming more stressful than ever. However, in the center of a Long Beach city, laid a beautiful and natural Japanese Tea Garden where people could visit to shake off their anxiety. The garden lays inside the campus of CSULB, which is near the parking lot 16 to the North of Earl Warren Drive. This is not just a normal garden like any other, but it reflects the culture, spirit, and aesthetics of Japanese. The garden combines three main elements that are water, plants, and rock. Those three elements present at every corner of the garden. At the center of the garden, a big pond shines in the bright sunshine. The pond is filled with greenish water and bunch of vegetation. Water-plants wiggle by the wave that made by some ducks and fish swimming in the pond. Some ducks cackle and plunge their heads into the water to enjoy the fresh water of the morning. The most interesting of the pond is that Koi fish are swimming everywhere in it. Schools of Koi fish with full of sizes are swimming around in the pond in order pattern like some big soft pieces of silk floating on the pond. That makes it a performance of dancing silk. Some big fish splash water up to the air by their tales while some others bubble up the water by their mouths. People can buy some food and feed the fish directly by their hands. People can hold some food at their fingers and dip the top of the fingers into water. The fish will come to take some food, and they sometime nibble at the fingers. Their soft mouths make people feel tickle. That is a very interesting experience. A grass path meanders around the pond and leads to every corner of the garden. To the right of the pond laid a big Black Ocean, which is a beach of gravel. Whenever it rain, the beach is full of water and the gravel turns black. It shines brightly like a paradise in fairytale. People could tap their bare foot on the warm pebble that are heated by the sun. They do not need to go to the spa to have hot pebble massage. Wind brings the earthy smell of soil and the sharp fishy smell. Those are combined with the smell of bryophytes in the morning make a fabulous aroma of fresh nature. Leaving the Black Sea, a Tea House, which made of bamboo wall, stands in the North of the pond. Lovely white birch trees flank both sides of the path