Shinshoji Zen Museum and Gardens — Attraction in Fukuyama

It is highly recommended to reserve more than 2 hours for this place. Due to the light bus schedule that we could only enjoy partial of Shinshoji this time. The experience here should be relax and joyful.

We also enjoyed the 五觀偈 Shinsho-ji udon at 光明堂 （1200 yen for one set). The most special part for me is to experience how monks eat these foods. The Unsui chopstick is cool even to Chinese people like me.

To be honest, I still did not get a clue about the 洸庭’s performance for the entire 30 mins. It will be really nice if I can have some pre-study or introduction. Or please someone let me know wha exactly this is about!

Last but not the least, I would like to express my appreciation to the staff again. They are super helpful! They guide us how to take bus to our next destination. In the end, they even drove us to the bus station! It saved our life and made our trip more...

We visited the Museum and Gardens in Mid-July 2025, on our great tour of Japan, the socalled "Golden route" as a kind of rest stop between busy megacities. It is a very beautiful estate and park, with some lovely old temples and other buildings reconstructed here, and a spectacular newbuild for a Zen experience in total darkness. You can have lunch with extra big udon. The highlight was the introduction in Zen Meditation by an english speaking monk, who had travelled especially from Kyoto to give this instruction to us. It was one, if not THE, highlight of our Japan trip. It was very quiet too (even in July) outside our little group of 4, we saw only 3 or max 4 visitors on the whole estate and park. Absolutely...

Lovely garden and temple with very kind staff members, one of the best memories of my trip. Loved wandering around the different areas which all had such a different atmosphere. There was a beautiful lake walk, an area with moss, rocks and small trees, a forest with large trees, and up top was a grand temple with a zen rock garden and a small calligraphy museum, and a modern art building/exhibit off to the side. Plan ahead so you can try the super thick monk udon, was a great experience. I didn’t get to try the onsen but will do so next time. The very kind staff also drove me 10 min to another bus station when I misread the...