I have a thing for Oriental stuff, so when I was going around the Golden Gate Park I had to check out what this Japanese Tea Garden was all about. I had seen a couple of pictures in my guide book and on the internet and I thought this would be a great place for photo ops, so when I got to the entrance I was a bit thrown off about the idea of having to pay to get in. Not that it was much – $5 – but, I guess I’m just a cheap bastard. But you go to San Francisco for a few days, and you want to see this thing that looks interesting and it starts to weight on your conscience like “it’s just money, when are you coming back to see this again”.
Unfortunately you cannot go up there
So I paid and got in. From the door I could see a piece of it that already seemed very nice, and I thought I was paying just to see something very small. It is not a big garden (it was bigger than it looked), but I gotta say that 5 bucks is a fair amount to pay, as the garden is very well kept and the toilets are free (I like to mention this because in Belgium we have to pay for toilets in most places).
Aren't fortune cookies Chinese?
I guess it helps that it was a sunny spring day, so the green was greener, and it was around lunch time on a weekday, which shouldn’t be the most popular time to visit, but makes it nice because there weren’t many people around. Actually I think this is one place that I wouldn’t even mind coming to every day and just sitting on the grass to read a book or write something, even with the entrance fee. Summary: it’s quiet, clean, well kept, what else? It has a pond with some canals, gold fish, lillypads. A pagoda in the middle, a gate, a weird semi-circle bridge, a gift shop, and a hut where you can have tea (wouldn’t be a Japanese Tea Garden without tea, right?) and some snacks. I guess the pictures speak for themselves. In the end, it was totally worth it.
Japanese Tea Garden
7 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr.
San Francisco CA 94118, USA
Phone: +1 (415) 752-1171
Email: info@japaneseteagardensf.com
Website: http://japaneseteagardensf.com
Related links:
Wikipedia – Japanese Tea Garden
View Atlas Parasite in a larger map
