Every year at the time of the Harvest Moon and our Moonviewing Festival, Portland Japanese Garden’s gardeners create this special checkered pattern, called ichimatsu moyo, with the white sand in the Flat Garden. This pattern raking was inspired by the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, Japan, the design of which is globally considered as the apex of the traditional Japanese approach on the use of space and refined simplicity. One of the tea houses at Katsura Imperial Villa (Shokin-tei) is known fo