[By Michelle Brown · Images Courtesy of The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens]

The Morikami offers a world of natural beauty and cutural experiences.

Off a road in western Palm Beach County is a welcoming destination that offers eastern elegance, natural serenity and cultural beauty. For more than 25 years, the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens have served as a gateway to another world - the world of Japan.

In this South Florida oasis, many cultures come to explore one. Visitors come to see the trees pruned just so, to sample a bowl of miso soup and a cup of green tea and to dance with the Obon performers under paper lanterns. Young and old marvel at the bonsai, feed the koi fish, pound the taiko drums and explore the Yamato-kan.

Why a Japanese park and museum in Palm Beach County, Florida? It is here that a group of young Japanese farmers created a community intended to revolutionize agriculture in Florida. In 1904, Jo Sakai, a recent graduate of New York University, returned to his homeland of Miyazu, Japan, to organize a group of pioneering farmers and lead them to what is now northern Boca Raton. Ultimately, the results of their crop experimentation were disappointing and the Yamato Colony fell far short of its goals. One by one, the families left for other parts of the United States or returned to Japan. One settler remained. His name was George Sukeji Morikami. In the mid-1970s, when George was in his 80s, he donated his land to Palm Beach County with the wish to preserve it as a park and to honor the memory of the Yamato Colony.

Today the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens pay tribute to his gift, offering visitors a gracious reprieve from the bustle of south Florida life, while providing a glimpse into Japanese culture, traditions and celebrations throughout the year.

Featuring six Japanese garden styles, the 16 acre Roji-en: Gardens of the Drops of Dew (the George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Japanese Gardens) is the Morikami's crown jewel, recognized as one of the top 10 Japanese gardens in Europe, North America and Australia by the Journal of Japanese Gardening.

The gardens surround Morikami Pond, and lead walkers approximately one mile through meandering greenery, past towering bamboo and rushing waterfalls and beside beds of carefully raked pebbles. Visitors are urged to walk slowly in order to enjoy the deliberate sculpture of the leaves, bushes, flowers and branches, which are painstakingly maintained on a daily basis by garden staff. Hoichi Kurisu, founder and president of Kurisu International, designed the gardens, which include representations of Shinden Gardens (9th-12th century), Paradise Gardens (13th-14th century), Early Rock Gardens (14th century), Late Rock Gardens (15th century), Flat Garden (16th-17th century) and Modern Romantic Gardens (19th-20th century). On select dates in the summer months, Sushi & Strolls -- Sunset Walks allow visitors to experience Roji-en in the cooler evening hours.