I’ve already written one post about the beautiful Nitobe Memorial Garden. It is a small slice of Japan on the edge of Vancouver. I loved seeing it in the summer, so I’ve kept going back as the seasons changed. The photos in this post are spread over October, November and the start of December.

Some of you may have noticed that I have posted far fewer adventures over the last month. This is basically because Christmas shopping, a nasty fever and an incredibly busy husband meant we didn’t manage to go for any new walks recently. (Boo!) So, I thought I could show how pretty Vancouver’s autumn leaves were instead. Back in Early October (when we had our first visit to Whistler,) the leaves were just starting to change. There was still plenty of greenery, so Nitobe Memorial Garden was still pretty green and lush.

The entrance to the garden is still stunning as the summer starts to change.

You can’t really see much of the change in my photos. Some of the leaves were starting to turn yellow. Most of the reflections in the post were still pretty summery though.

It is so, so relaxing to walk around the garden like this. For some reason when I visited, there weren’t even many other people there. It’s not often you get somewhere this lovely to yourself! In early October, there were quite a lot of dragonflies with bright red bodies zipping around. There were also quite a few carp swishing along in the ponds.

On the edge of Nitobe Memorial Garden there is a traditional tea house. It is so pretty and Japanese-y! It is so nice to see the tatami mats and shoji blinds. I’m not sure when it is used for the tea ceremony, but I hope I get to see it when it is open for matcha and visitors.

The next time I went back to Nitobe Memorial Garden was around a week later. Trees can change a lot in a week! This was also about the same time as I got distracted cycling around Vancouver to see all the gorgeous leaves. The garden is pretty sheltered, so the colours had not changed as much as the rest of Vancouver.

All of these visits are during my lunch hour, so the sun was high in the sky and streaming through the trees. The trees around the water were starting to look a little golden. Isn’t it lovely!?

One maple tree changed before all the others…

The one thing that breaks the spell to show we’re not in Japan are the huuuge trees that surround the garden. Those trees are truly Canadian!

The following week the garden had changed again…

There were definitely more people out to appreciate the Nitobe Memorial Garden now the leaves had changed a bit more!

The view from the centre of the garden over the pond is so, so lovely.

This is the view in the other direction.

So, you probably get the idea by now, but I quite like the momiji leaves.

I went back one more time this week, now all the leaves have fallen. This is how it looks now.
I quite like the way the reflection of the trees and sky still look stunning now the trees are bare.

I should also probably mention that Vancouver did NOT look this gorgeous all through the autumn! It rained quite a lot, it’s just I am far more likely to go out for a long walk to the Nitobe Memorial Garden in the sun! It might still be lovely in the rain, I just don’t want to get my work shoes wet by heading all the way over there in the rain.