Manito Park Japanese Garden Rules

Here are the rules posted for visitors to the Japanese Gardens at Manito Park in Spokane Washington.

1. No Dogs allowed. They would like it if you did not bring your dog into the Japanese Garden at Manito Park.

2. No Food Allowed. Do not feed the koi fish, and do not bring food into the garden. If you have a coffee with you when you enter, please be considerate and do not litter.

3. Stay on the paved pathways. There is a gravel path through the Japanese garden.

4. Keep off the grass. This one is a bit redundant - because if you stay on the paths, then by default you will stay off the grass. But they must have believed it was necessary to say it twice. You know, the department of redundancy department.

5. No bicycles or skateboards. Not sure how one would skateboard inside the garden on gravel paths, but we suppose it had to be said for some reason. Navigating the gravel paths in the Japanese Garden at Manito Park would be tricky anyway, so avoid the trouble and leave your bike outside.

6. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. This makes sense, although assumes the adult accompanying the child under 12 is more mature than the child.

7. Use fish viewing areas to access the water. Not sure how else the water would be accessed, but okay. I think this is related to #3 and #4 - stay on the paths.

8. Do not touch fish or wildlife. Yuck the koi pond looked filthy last weekend, only touch the fish if you want a disease.

9. No commercial photography is allowed except for reserved weddings. Apparently they want to control photography of the garden and only grant the privilege to those who pay the fee. Those of us amateurs with point-and-shoot cameras are okay.

10. This is not a playground (duh), it is made for enjoying the beauty and for meditation. Okay, except, how ignorant do they think I am exactly, wait - I don't want to know.

11. Please show respect for the garden and other guests. Yes, please don't be annoying, loud, rude and be nice. Seems simple enough.

These are the 11 rules posted outside the Japanese Garden at Manito Park in Spokane Washington. For more information about Manito Park, visit http://www.manitopark.org/.