Some names you encounter in bonsai before you ever really understand what bonsai is. Kunio Kobayashi is one of them.

Born in Tokyo in 1948 into a family involved in floriculture, Kobayashi came to bonsai later than you might expect – he was 28 years old when he saw a Japanese white pine at an exhibition and something clicked. From that moment, he built a career that placed him in the absolute top tier of the art. A thirty-time recipient of the most prestigious awards in Japanese bonsai, he is sought after both domestically and internationally. If Masahiko Kimura – whom I visited just days earlier – is the rebel genius who bent the rules of bonsai into something wild and sculptural, Kobayashi is the master of classical refinement, elegance, and depth. Two different visions of the same art. Both extraordinary.

I had been following Kobayashi for a while before this trip — his books, his YouTube channel – and his trees had quietly become a reference point for me. The way he handles negative space, the stillness in his compositions. I wanted to see them in person.

Shunkaen Bonsai Museum sits in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, founded by Kobayashi in 2002. From my hotel in Ginza it was about an hour by train – a long ride into a quiet residential neighborhood that felt a world away from the city center. When you finally arrive, the transition is immediate. You step through a traditional entrance and the noise drops away.

At the center of the main courtyard stands a Japanese black pine estimated to be 1,000 years old. I stood in front of it for a long time. Around it, over a thousand bonsai works are displayed across 2,600 square meters of garden and traditional Sukiya-style structures.

What made the visit especially memorable was the person who showed me around: Abdiel, an apprentice from Puerto Rico who has been training at Shunkaen for four years. Patient, generous, deeply immersed in the work. He walked me through tree after tree, sharing context and history, never rushing. Exactly the kind of guide you hope for.

The Indoor Chambers — A Story in Three Parts

Abdiel took me inside to the museum’s indoor exhibition area — a series of chambers where trees are displayed in rotation, brought in from the garden as needed since bonsai, of course, need proper sun and cannot live permanently indoors. The rotation itself says something about the care and intention behind every detail of this place.

What I encountered there stopped me in my tracks. Each display was not just a bonsai on a table. It was a complete composition: a bonsai on a specially crafted exhibition stand, beside a suiseki stone, beside a hanging scroll painting – each element chosen to speak to the others, all of them together telling a single story about a season, a landscape, a feeling.

A word about Suiseki, because until that moment I honestly didn’t fully grasp what it was. Suiseki are naturally shaped stones, collected and displayed for the landscapes they suggest — a mountain, a cliff, a shoreline. They are not carved or altered; their beauty is found, not made. And standing there in that chamber, it suddenly became clear: the bonsai is a miniature tree. The Suiseki is a miniature mountain. Together they recreate an entire world in a space you could cross in three steps. The bonsai I had understood. The Suiseki I had seen. But seeing them composed together, with the scroll completing the scene above – that was the moment I truly understood what the Japanese bonsai display is trying to do. It’s not decoration. It’s storytelling.

Abdiel noticed I was intrigued. So he took me to see Mr. Kobayashi’s personal suiseki collection. Remarkable pieces – stones that carry entire landscapes within them. A whole new world I hadn’t expected to walk into that day.

Meeting the Master

Then came the moment I had been quietly looking forward to since arriving in Japan.

Mr. Kobayashi appeared. Following the guidance of my teacher Shai back home, I had prepared for this – I knew the protocol. I introduced myself properly, and I presented him with a gift I had brought from Israel: a pomegranate-shaped ceramic bowl, a symbol of home. He appreciated it. In return, he gave me two books – one of them dedicated entirely to the art of suiseki. Given what I had just discovered that morning, the timing felt almost too perfect.

Pine Season in the Garden

I returned to the garden and continued exploring. It was peaceful – but also very much alive with work. Pine season had arrived, and Mr. Kobayashi himself was out among the trees with his apprentices, removing needles by hand to balance the energy distribution across the branches. Watching a master do the same patient, seasonal work that bonsai growers do everywhere – just on trees of a completely different scale and age – was quietly moving.

And then I saw it.

Tucked under one of the exhibition tables, as if it had been waiting there – a large bonsai pot. I crouched down to look at it more carefully. I had a suspicion. I asked Abdiel. He confirmed it: a Gyouzan pot. One of the most celebrated pot makers from Tokoname. A collector’s piece. And Gyouzan, I learned, had passed away earlier this year. These pots will not be made again.

I hesitated for exactly one moment.

Price wasn’t really the question – you can’t put a price on something like that. The question was more practical: the pot was bigger than my suitcase. I was flying back to Israel. I had already transported one large ceramic piece on this trip. But some decisions make themselves, and this was one of them. I purchased it. I still don’t know how I’m getting it home – as I write this, still in my Tokyo hotel, that problem remains unsolved – but we will find a solution. There was no other choice.

The End of a Beautiful Day

I made my way toward the exit. And then – a small moment that I keep coming back to – Mr. Kobayashi came out again, just to say goodbye.

He didn’t have to do that. But he did.

Great artist. Very kind man. I hope one day I’ll have the opportunity to return.

BonsaiNomad

BonsaiNomad | June 2026

There are moments in a journey that you plan for weeks and then, when they finally happen, they exceed everything you imagined. My visit to Masahiko Kimura’s garden was one of those moments.

Let me start with some context for those who don’t know the name — though in the bonsai world, that’s hard to imagine.

Masahiko Kimura didn’t just push bonsai forward — he detonated it into the modern era. Born in Ōmiya, Saitama in 1940, he began his apprenticeship at age 15 under master Motosuke Hamano at Toju-en Bonsai Garden — a training that would last eleven years. But what came after is what defined him. His designs were first seen as controversial because they broke many traditional rules of bonsai — dramatic deadwood, impossible curves, living sculpture that nobody had attempted before. He became known as the “Magical Technician of Kindai Shuppan,” though apparently he never much liked the title. Today, his garden in Saitama remains a pilgrimage site for serious bonsai practitioners.

I had been following his work since I started this hobby — his books, YouTube videos, the junipers that appear again and again in every serious bonsai publication. When I began planning my Japan trip, visiting Kimura’s garden moved quickly to the top of the list. Not a “nice to have.” A must.

The problem: his garden is open to the public only by appointment. And the location? Quite confidential — understandable when you consider that some of his trees are valued at seven figures. I reached out through every connection I had. Doors stayed closed.

And then Bjorn came through.

I won’t say more than that — some doors open through trust and relationships built over years, and I’m grateful for the people in this community who share them. Bjorn arranged the visit and, in true style, equipped me in advance with a message in Japanese to show the apprentices.

When I arrived and walked up the path to the garden, a group of apprentices met me — mostly Japanese, and one who had come all the way from Peru. They asked who I was. I showed them Bjorn’s message. The moment they read it, everything changed — warm smiles, welcoming gestures, an invitation to walk freely through the garden until Mr. Kimura arrived.

What followed was something I still struggle to put into words.

His garden is like a museum, and anyone interested in Japanese bonsai will recognize at least half the collection from magazines and websites. I found myself walking alone among these trees for a couple of hours. No rush. No crowd. Just me and the most famous bonsai collection in the world. I recognized trees from books I’d studied at home in Israel. Trees I had seen in photographs for months, suddenly right there in front of me — close enough to touch.

Then Mr. Kimura arrived.

He is 85 now , and his health means he no longer spends the full day at the garden. But he came. I introduced myself in broken Japanese — something I had prepared, though I’m sure my pronunciation did it no favors — and presented the gift I had brought from Israel: a pomegranate-shaped bowl. A symbol of home, of abundance, of the land I come from. He looked at it carefully, seemed genuinely appreciative, and then walked with me through his trees for a few minutes, quietly, the way someone moves through a space they have tended for decades.

Then he went home to rest.

Those few minutes were enough. More than enough.

I stayed longer, chatting with one of the apprentices — Google Translate doing the heavy lifting. He told me about life as an apprentice: the early mornings, the discipline, the years of commitment it takes to earn a place in a garden like this. Hard work and deep purpose. At some point we stopped talking and just watered some of the trees together. Famous trees. Trees I had read about. And there I was, holding the hose.

Kimura’s effect runs deeper than the trees themselves — into how people think about line, about drama, about pushing past what they thought was possible. Standing in his garden, I understood that in a new way. His Shimpaku junipers are his most famous and award-winning species , and seeing them in person — the deadwood, the impossible movement, the sheer sculptural force of them — is nothing like a photograph. And the pine forests. Simply beautiful. Quietly monumental.

Six months into this hobby, I stood in the garden of the man who redefined it. I arrived as a pilgrim and left as something more — not a master, not even close, but someone who has now seen with his own eyes what this art can become.

The road continues. More gardens, more teachers, more trees.

BonsaiNomad

Omiya Bonsai Village, Saitama

June 2026

It started, as so many pilgrimages do, with a red-eye flight and a city still half-asleep. After a hectic week of business in Australia, I boarded a night flight to Tokyo — a deliberate choice, refusing to lose a single day of what was a dream for quite some time. I landed in the early morning, dropped my bags at the hotel in Ginza, and within the hour I was on a train heading north. Destination: Omiya. A Village Born from Catastrophe

The train ride gave me time to think about where I was going. Omiya Bonsai Village — or Ōmiya Bonsaimura — is not a theme park or a curated attraction. It is a living neighbourhood, born from disaster and shaped by a century of devotion.

Omiya is a city in Saitama Prefecture, located 30 kilometres north of Tokyo. A collective of Tokyo’s foremost bonsai artisans identified the area as the perfect location for a village-like community of bonsai gardens. Environmental conditions were favourable — cleaner air, better-quality groundwater, and soil enriched by ancient eruptions of Mt. Fuji, giving it a low mineral content ideal for growing miniaturised trees.

Following the widespread fires and destruction of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, bonsai artisans were even more determined to leave the capital, and in 1925 Omiya Bonsai Village was established where it remains today. Previously underutilised land became a thriving hub of bonsai cultivation, home to as many as 35 nurseries in the years leading up to World War II. In 1942 the local government officially named the district Bonsaicho — literally, “Bonsai Town.”

The founding residents even set special rules for the village: each household had to own at least ten bonsai trees, keep their garden open to the public, and avoid building any two-storey house that might cast shade on a neighbour’s trees. There is something quietly radical about a community organised around the protection of plants.

Today the village’s name is known all over the world, drawing foreign visitors and bonsai enthusiasts who come seeking training, knowledge, and a glimpse of living masterpieces. The first World Bonsai Convention was held here in 1989, attracting visitors from 32 countries, and returned again in 2017 — cementing Omiya’s place as the spiritual home of bonsai culture.

The Museum — A World First

My first stop was the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum — the world’s first museum solely devoted to bonsai, with a collection of over 120 masterpieces alongside woodblock prints and historic artworks centred on bonsai culture.

What makes it unlike any other museum is this: the works are never finished. As they grow, they change. Every tree on display is a work in progress — and visitors can learn how each one is shaped and pruned over the course of its living life.

Mind-blowing. All the trees are hundreds of years old. Some over a thousand. Standing in front of them, you feel the weight of time differently.

I walked slowly through the exhibition, trying to take it all in. The oldest specimens have been alive longer than most nations. They were saplings when medieval Europe was rebuilding from the plague. They have outlasted dynasties, wars, earthquakes — and through all of it, they have been tended, shaped, and cared for by generations of hands. It is a profoundly humbling thing to stand in front of.

The Six Nurseries

There are six bonsai gardens in Omiya Bonsai Village, each shaped by the personality and aesthetic taste of its owner. Time allowed me to visit three — Mansei-en, Fuyo-en, and Toju-en — which I had been told were among the most compelling.

All three were extraordinary — beyond anything I could have imagined before arriving. The most beautiful trees I have ever seen, displayed with the quiet confidence that comes from centuries of refinement. No spotlights, no dramatic staging. Just trees on benches, in silence, speaking for themselves.

I’ll be honest: I felt something complicated walking through those gardens. Pure awe, yes — but also a particular sadness that comes from loving something you cannot have. In Israel, trees of this age and calibre simply don’t exist in bonsai form. Import restrictions make acquiring them impossible. You look at a six-hundred-year-old juniper and you understand, viscerally, that this is something that cannot be rushed or replicated. It must be grown, across generations, by people who accept they will never see it finished.

That thought is both humbling and, strangely, liberating. It clarifies what the practice is really about.

(Photography was not permitted in any of the three nurseries — privacy and protection — so these impressions live only in memory.)

A Conversation with Sam

At the last garden, I got talking with an apprentice — a young man named Sam, from the UK. He had been there six years. We stood in the late afternoon light while he told me about the life.

Six days a week. Often seven. Early mornings and late evenings. The kind of commitment that closes off most other paths — but he spoke about it without complaint, with something closer to quiet satisfaction.

What struck me most was the structure of learning:

Year 1 — Chores. No trees. Cleaning, sweeping, carrying. Learning the rhythms of the garden, the hierarchy, the silence. The apprentice earns trust before earning access.

Year 2 — First contact. Allowed to touch the trees, but only for the most basic maintenance tasks. Observation remains the primary mode of learning.

Year 3 — The art of water. Only in the third year are apprentices taught how to water. This surprised me most. It is explained simply: watering is everything. Too much and the tree grows weakly; too little and development stalls. The water is the message you send the tree about what you want it to become. It takes a full year just to learn to read and respond correctly.

Years 4–6 — Development and art. Only now does the formal teaching of bonsai shaping begin — wiring, timing, aesthetic intention. Everything before this was preparation.

I thought about that for a long time on the train back to Tokyo. We live in an age obsessed with shortcuts and acceleration. And here, in this quiet corner of Saitama, people are voluntarily choosing the opposite — building their lives around the slowest possible version of mastery.

A Final Thought

Before leaving I had one more thought — and I’ll admit it made me smile. Sam’s path demands you start young. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe bonsai, precisely because it cannot be rushed, is the perfect discipline for someone who comes to it as a passion rather than a vocation. You are freed from the pressure of mastery. You can simply grow alongside the trees.

I left Omiya just as the afternoon light was going golden. Already my mind was full of what was coming next — Shizuoka, the kilns, the workshops ahead. But for a few hours on that train back through the Saitama suburbs, I let myself just sit with what I’d seen. A thousand-year-old tree in a pot. The hands that shaped it. The hands that will shape it next.

What a way to begin.