Japanese Garden, Lilies, Birds, And Water

We visited with an old friend we hadn't seen in years.  She recommended the Japanese Garden in Van Nuys as the meeting place. 


Wow, we didn't even know it existed.  It was a great place to walk and talk. 

We know the Japanese Garden in Portland fairly well, having lived close to it when we were in that city for six months.   This one is totally different and interesting in its own way.

Lots of birds.  Like this osprey. 

And lots of lilies in a long flat rectangular lily and lotus pond.





And a wonderful way to catch up on lives. 







Not much time now.  Headed for the airport and Seattle before we get home.  If all goes well, we'll meet our granddaughter's plane in Seattle, which is why we're on such an early flight.  (Well, an 8 o'clock flight doesn't sound so early, it's getting to the airport on time that's the killer.)

So here are some of the pictures.

Lotus

Snowy Egret

There's an American Bittern sitting on the rock

There's also a very big modern building on the grounds that seemed too big and the style too space-agey for a Japanese Garden.  It turns out the garden is really part of a large water reclamation plant which sits directly next door and the building is for that rather than the garden. 


I didn't take any pictures of the building except of the garden through the walkway around the building.


The AAA explains this relationship:

"The Japanese Garden at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, 6100 Woodley Ave., is a water-treatment facility highlighted by a 6.5-acre Japanese garden."

It's a stark contrast between the garden and the plant which abut each other. 

And, apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks the building (not the plant, but the building which I didn't take pictures of) is space agey. From a Memory Wikia:

"The location can also be seen in episodes of Knight Rider (1986), Murder, She Wrote (1993), Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (1995), L.A. Heat (1997), Charmed (1999), and Numb3rs (2009) and was featured in the action comedy Dead Heat (1988, starring Joe Piscopo), the crime drama Rising Sun (1993), the science fiction film CyberTracker (1994), the action film Red Sun Rising (1994), the comedy Bio-Dome (1996), the comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), the thriller Most Wanted (1997), the science fiction thriller Terminal Error (2002, with Marina Sirtis and Michael Nouri), and the science fiction film Sci-Fighter (2004). [1]"