At Adobe, Technology Summit happens every alternate year and this is also a great opportunity to meet your colleagues from different geographies and various projects. I have spent 7+ years in Imaging group at Adobe and this is the time when I get to interact with colleagues from imaging group in San Jose. Photography group at Adobe organises a Photo-Walk during this time and they are kind enough to include me in the same, although, I am not a part of this group anymore. For last 3 Tech Summits, I could attend the Photo-Walk and explore California with like minded folks.
In 2013, we visited San Francisco and explored various places around the downtown, Golden Gate Bridge and museums. A special Photo-walk was organised in 2015, wherein accomplished photographers shared some tips about playing with natural light with other light sources in Santa Clara. And this year, we visited Hakone Gardens near Saratoga and Stanford University.
Weather was not very favourable and there was forecast for mild rain. As we reached Hakone Gardens, it started drizzling, but it was manageable. Some of us were wearing appropriate cloths and others were confident about dealing with the situation. There is entry ticket fees of $10 per person. One can buy the ticket from main gate and start exploring the garden.
The garden is on an incline, so one needs to climb up the hill and it seems you get brilliant views from the top which we missed because of bad visibility that day. There is a waterfall inside the garden which merges into a water pond surrounded by colourful plants and flowers.
As you climb up, there are different houses inside the garden. The one you see in above photograph was on the topmost part of the garden. I tried finding any board which tell about this house but couldn't find any details. There are dedicated walking trails in the garden and if you are there for photography, plan for 2 hrs at least.
Since it was raining, my travellingcamera wanted to capture these shiny drops on the colourful leaves. And I missed a macro lens during the walk.
There is a huge area which is dedicated to bamboo garden and you can see wide variety of bamboos here. I found the above very interesting.
This garden is built by a japanese family and there is a small temple kind of structure inside the garden. It's very small : 3-4 feel high. We noticed new cents put on various parts of this structure. It seemed like a tradition and interestingly it's almost in every part of the world where you can see coins in water ponds or specific structures like this.
When I looked on the web for images of Hakone Gardens, I realised that place looks beautiful when all plants have flowers. In the month of feb, only few of the plants had flowers. And interestingly, from photographs on web it came out that Hakone Garden is also booked for various ceremonies & celebrations. Lot of photographers come here with couples for pre-wedding or post-wedding shoots. And most of the photographs clicked at Hakone Garden are stunning.
I liked Bamboo garden the most, although I couldn't make satisfactory photographs from this place. I hope to Hakone Garden again in right season and spend little more time there.
There were these lovely turtles around the water pond inside Hakone Gardens.
Hakone Garden is in Saratoga town of California and the drive form main road to the garden is little steep.
There are few japanese style buildings inside the garden, but not all parts of these buildings are accessible. Its very peaceful place, located a little away from main road and the town, still well connected. The hike inside the garden is very comfortable.
After great time at Hakone Garden, it was time to drive towards Stanford University. In next post, I will be sharing about some interesting experiences at Stanford University along with photographs of the campus.
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