I'm glad you posted that cos I'd forgotten about this thread and I actually giggled
at my own post there hehe.
A while back I went to one of the Kew Monday evening talks where the guy was telling
us about his time in Japan. He commented that seeing the names in Japanese script
made him wonder what it might be that he was looking at
He was also talking about the raked gravel gardens - to be honest I'd always thought
they were a bit daft and vaguely pretentious - but having him explain the effort involved
and the symbolism behind some of it... actually very interesting. I bought my dad one
of those wee gimmicky 'zen garden' miniatures with sand in a box, some pebbles and
a tiny rake for christmas last year. He was quite amused with it