It was a nice sunny morning. The sun was shining brightly up in the sky, giving light and hope to all living beings on earth. The air was fresh. The plants in the garden were swaying gently to the morning breeze as if they were dancing and enjoying the start of a new day. Even the insects and worms came out to join the celebration.

And then…out of the corner of our eyes…we caught sight of a stranger. The stranger took a comfortable position behind these branches.

Who could the stranger be? What was the stranger doing here? We wondered as we move closer and closer towards the branches. We began to see some light to the questions that were playing in our minds.

To our surprise, we found out that the stranger was a cat! She seemed pleased to be able to find a nice little spot for herself for sun-bathing that lovely morning. She might not even notice that she has been discovered! Well, that’s what I thought.

So, we tried to get a closer shot of her.

And closer…

“Hmmm…something smells fishy around here…,” said the Stranger.

And all of a sudden…

“Uh-oh, I’m exposed!” the Stranger exclaimed.

Hmmm…that didn’t look very pleasant. But she’s a beauty. When we spotted her, she remained still and graceful. We mewed at her but there was not answer. She didn’t move a muscle as if she was a statue in the garden.

We looked at her and she looked back at us. However, she didn’t seem like she was going to move away from there. So, we stood still in order not to give her a fright and ended up chasing her away instead.

“Hmm…what am I suppose to do now? I’m…surrounded.” cried the Stranger.

And slowly, she turned her view away from us and moved her head slightly.

“Okay, let me just close my eyes for a while and think. There must be a way out.”

She shutted her eyes as if she was thinking hard for a solution.

“Alright, I’ll just pretend that nobody saw me and I’m just gonna continue with this sun-bathing of mine. Now…just look at this beautiful sun shine..”

She turned her head to the other side as though we weren’t there at all. Most cats would have ran away in a dash at this point but this one is rather peculiar. I wonder what’s really playing in her mind.

“Alright…alright…that’s enough. I’m getting outta here.”

We thought that she was really gone but then we found her again. This time, she “spoke”. We mewed and finally she answered. This picture looks as though she was fierce but actually she was just mewing. It’s kindda tough to catch the mewing moment because it only lasts for a couple of seconds so we actually got lucky that day. Great job, Colin!

“Hello human, my name is Felis Silvestris Catus. That means, I’m a Tortoiseshell Tabby Cat. Nice to meet both of you.” said the Stranger politely, when she spoke for the first time.

“Hello Felis Silvestris Catus.” We answered by mewing back to her.

Then, she followed us around. She didn’t seem to be afraid of human beings, not like any other cats that I’ve met before. They usually run away very quickly. She looked a bit cool, isn’t she? But she is friendly.

“Hey…hey…look what I found!” said Felis Silvestris Catus excitedly.

We offered her a piece of biscuit. That’s the most suitable food that we could find at that moment.

“I don’t mean to be rude but that doesn’t seem to suit my appetite. But thank you.” said Felis Silvestris Catus.

I think the tongue thing in the picture was just a coincidence. I don’t think she really wanted to make a funny face. Plus, can cat make funny faces??

“Hmmm…that’s interesting!” Felis Silvestris Catus said, staring at the fish tank on top of the wooden shelf. I think we all know what’s on Felis mind now.

Then, she decided to leave.

But, she hesitated.

“The road ahead looks rough and unpredictable.” sigh Felis Silvestris Catus.

However, she moved on.

She climbed up the broken wooden staircase to go to the other side.

And she made it. We watched her until we lost sight of her.

Here’s a lovely view of her. She is called Felis Silvestris Catus, a Tortoiseshell Tabby Cat, named after the colours on her body. She’s a special breed indeed.

Well, thank you to the lovely Felis Silvestris Catus (Tortoiseshell Tabby Cat) for sparing the time with us to take all these photographs. Do drop by again sometimes. Take care, Felis Silvestris Catus.

There are quite a number of birds in the Japanese Garden. They are swans, geese, ducks, and different type of birds.

There were 2 geese sleeping at 7 am in the morning. They turned their necks backward and hid their heads between their wings. Take a close look, surprisingly they slept with one foot only. I wonder how they balanced themselves.

They can swim in the water.

They can have fun on the land.

They look for food / chasing people in group. I guess the white colour bird is a female, and she got three male followers. Their necks are longer when they are chasing people or when they are looking for food.

The duck is smaller than the goose, its head is in shinny green colour and it has black tail.

My friend tried to feed the goose/bird with something.

The goose will chase people if it knows there is food. If you were in its territory, it may chase you away also. Birds in Australia can attack human in the season when they have given birth to their baby birds.

The birds are looking for food. They eat the fish in the lake.

Watching the birds are very enjoyable. They have different actions, they sing different types of bird songs they swim in different style and they eat in different ways.

Birds in Malaysia is very small in size compare to birds in Australia. If there are fat birds in Malaysia, I think their life are in danger if they are not categorised as protected animal whereas in Australia, human have to be careful not to be attacked by the birds.

Mapple trees show their most beautiful leaves in the autumn. All of the leaves turn into reddish brown, red, orange or yellow colour. All these colours are warm colour. The nature is really amazing, while the temperature is starting to get colder the colours of the leafs will become warmer.

Getting nearer to the winter the leaves get lesser and lesser. And all of them are in red colour.

Different type of trees have their leaves dropped at different times in the fall season.

This is a lonely mapple tree leaf on the sandy walking path. I had collected a few mapple tree leafs and put them in my text book to make them flater. But after a few months, when I checked on them again, they were broken into small pieces even just to softly touch them with the most gentle fingers. I have no chance to collect them again, because the season had gone.

These are how’s the trees look like in winter. Their leaves are all dropped. Now I understand why winter is called “winter” because it is windy. And the wind blow away all the leaves on the trees.

Sunday is called “sunday” because it is sunny do you agree?

This is a healthy and strong tree, no matter how strong he is, he has to remove his leaves during the winter and show the other side of his beauty without the leaves.

The yellow leaves of this tree showered the ground. This was the coldest time of the year.

Sakura took her turn to bloom in middle of the winter. She is shy and she waits until the lowest temperature to show her beauty.

There are other trees in the Japanese garden, like the ever-green/yellow bamboo which I don’t have their good photos. There will be one day in the future, when my dream comes true, SiewPeng and I will be going to visit Toowoomba again, and take their photos again and let you see them.

“Japanese Garden is a popular venue for weddings: spring weddings are often held under the mass of lilac blossoms hanging from the Wisteria Pergola, while other couples choose to be married in front of the waterfall or under the Viewing Pavilion on one of the islands.” -  Quoted from USQ website.

This is called Wisteria Pergola.
This is a special pergola.  In Autumn, the leaves turn into falls colours.

In winter, all its leaves are gone.  The branches are still there, waiting the coming of spring to give the new shoots.

In the season between spring and summer, it blooms.  You will be able to see the light purple flowers hanging on the pergola.

I want to have a pergola in my home garden as well.  What climber plant should I used?  Hmm…  May be a red colour morning glory.  I hope that I can let you see the pictures of my pergola soon.

Japanese garden is within the USQ campus area which is about 4.5 hectare.  It is very beautiful and special.  There are hundreds type of plants in this garden.  There are features like lake with bridges, a very long walking path, waterfalls, a hill with viewing pavilion, mountain stream, rocks, stones, pergola, Japanese lamp and other Japanese style decoration.

Just next to the enterance there is a map of this park.  You can see there are 2 islands and 4 bridges.  There are 2 exits, one is facing the Block Z of the Uni, the other one I have forgotten because I seldom used that exit. 

I can’t believe I have forgotten how is that entrance look like.  And now I really hope that I can be there and check it out.  The only thing I can do now is to check the Goggle Map.  After 5 years, what I can recall is that it is somewhere near the Concannon Residential College.

This Japanese Garden is called Ju Raku En.  “Ju” means longetivity.  “Raku” means to enjoy and “En” means public recreation area.  I got this information from USQ website. 

Riding bicycle is not allowed in this park, therefore I always parked my bicycle outside this park.

This is the willow tree in the winter, all the leaves were gone.

I took the following picture in between May to July 2002.  It was a good place to relax my mind.  There was one time I went there after submit my assignment.  I also went there after taken  the exams.  Although the winter is cold, I still liked to go there.

In Autumn, some of the trees will start to turn their leaves into red colour.  But in winter most of the leaves will be gone and have to wait until the spring to come and bring back the shoots.  Summer will be the evergrowing season, where the plants will have all their leaves bushy.

The scenery in Japanese Garden from different angles.

There is a mountain stream connected to the lake.

All the waterfalls, islands and bridges are labeled with names in Japanese and has been translated into English.

Not far from one of the bridge, ther is a pavillion beside the lake.  There was one time I went there and saw someone feeding the fish.

I took this picture while I was standing on one of the islands.  The viewing pavillion on the top left corner of this picture is actually located on a small hill.

The name of this bridge is “Viewing mountain bridge” becauase while standing on this bridge, you can see the hill.

This is a Japanese style landscaping feature where the small stone is white, tidy and clean. 

There are bigger stones by the side of the lake.  My brother had created a slideshow of some of my seleted Australia photos which can be played on DVD machine.  This picture of stones was used by my brother at the begining of each chapter to show the title for each chapter in the DVD slideshow.

The name of this waterfall is written on a small Japanese style sign board.  If translate into English it is called “The Waterfall of Dragon Door”.

Another pavillion beside the lake.  It is the good place to watch birds, swans, geese, ducks and fish in the lake.

The stone steps as the stair case and the evergreen-leaves wall on both sides lead you to the viewing pavillion on the hill.  There are 2 paths to go up to the viewing pavillion.  one on the east, the other on the west.  If we walked up the hill using the east side, we will go down using the west and vise versa.

From the viewing pavillion on a hill, this is how Japanese Garden looks like.

The gardener was sitting on a cute small car smilling at us.

The story of Japanese Garden has not ended yet.  I have a lot more stories to tell you.  Stay tune with colinjong.com for more stories about Japanese Garden.