The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens
4000 Morikami Park Road, Delray Beach, 561/495-0233, Morikami.org
The late George Sukeji Morikami once said he wanted the 200-acre property that bears his name in Delray Beach to be "a place of peace and serenity, a place of understanding." Morikami died in 1976, one year after the groundbreaking on the Japanese cultural center that is everything he could have imagined. Once farmland under Morikami, the quiet parcel now houses a museum, a gift shop, the acclaimed Cornell Cafe lunch spot and, most prominently, a mile-long gravel walking path that winds slowly around a large, centerpiece lake. In a visitors guide, garden designer Hoichi Kurisu said the path provides a place to "exchange burden, boredom and despair for renewal, inspiration and hope." He's not exaggerating. The loudest sounds are your feet on gravel, the waterfall near the greeting center and, when you stand silently, crickets chirping and dragonflies buzzing. The Morikami, which is closed Mondays, sits about one-half mile west of Jog Road in a patch of earth reminiscent of what South Florida used to be. What might have become another condo development is instead a place where people can find harmony with themselves and nature.
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