Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Isle’s latest tourist spot


PENANG now has a new tourist attraction with the opening of a RM108,000 Japanese Garden near the Botanic Gardens in Jalan Kebun Bunga.
The miniature garden, covering 2832.8 sq m, which is modelled after the Itabashi Garden in Japan, has a winding pathway paved with stones and landscaped with bamboo and tropical plants.
State Tourism, Culture, Arts and Heritage committee chairman Danny Law Heng Kiang said the garden was the result of an exchange programme with Itabashi city.


“In September 1994, the state signed a joint communiqué on friendship with Itabashi city and a Tropical Botanical Garden similar to the Penang Botanic Gardens was set up in the city itself.
“This is an exchange of gardens with Itabashi and I believe it would be another tourist spot in Penang,” he said after the opening ceremony yesterday.
Twenty-six representatives from Itabashi, including city mayor Takeshi Sakamoto, visited the Japanese Garden yesteday.
“Malaysian tourists who visit the Tropical Botanical Garden in Itabashi will have the feeling that they are in Penang.
“Likewise, Japanese tourists to Penang will feel at home when they visit the Japanese Garden,” Takeshi said.


He added that the tropical plants in the Tropical Botanical Garden were grown in a greenhouse to protect them from cold weather.
Takeshi said he was glad that the funds raised in conjunction with a friendship agreement in 2004 were fully utilised on the Japanese Garden.
“We welcome Penangites to visit Itabashi next year in conjunction with our 15th anniversary of the friendship agreement,” he said.

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