Uchi-Roji: inner-garden path

Taken at Portland Japanese Gardens, Portland Oregon.

“The tea garden consists of a pathway (roji) that leads to Kashintei (Flower-Heart Tea House), connects inner and outer gardens, separated by a simple bamboo gate. The outer garden path (soto-roji) leads guests to the machiai (waiting place), until the host greets them and invites them to enter the inner garden path (uchi-roji). Here guests pause at the tsukubai (arrangement of stones around a water basin) to rinse their hands and mouth, symbolically removing the dust of the real world behind. The path through the gardens represents a journey that is so important to the creation of the proper state of mind for the tea ceremony that the word roji has become synonymous with tea gardens themselves.”— www.japanesegarden.com (Portland Japanese Gardens)