Kim's Thoughts
Just a few thoughts I feel worthy of jotting down!
Japanese Tea Garden – San Francisco Adventure
I’m going to skip ahead a couple days to my last day in San Francisco – don’t worry, I’ll go back to the wonderful tours I took to Muir Woods and Napa Valley – but really wanted to show you the Japanese Tea Garden, today! On my last day in San Francisco, I had to check out in the morning, but didn’t have to catch the bus to the train until about 9:00 that night. So, I asked the Cow Hollow Inn to store my luggage for me (which they were happy to do) and I set out for one more day of sight seeing. I had booked a bay cruise to end my time in San Francisco…..a nice relaxing boat ride on the bay to enjoy one more day of warmth and sunshine before heading out to Seattle, which predicted cooler temps and possible rain. But, I did a really thorough job of seeing everything I wanted to see, with one exception……and, other than getting a closer look at Alcatraz as the tour boat passed by it, I wasn’t going to see anything new AND I wasn’t going to see the one thing I missed out on and wished I hadn’t! See, when I did the hop-on-hop-off tours earlier in the week, I missed the chance to hop off at Golden Gate Park with enough time to go through a wonderful Japanese Tea Garden they have there and I was really disappointed about that. So……I decided to skip the bay cruise and spend the bulk of my last day in Golden Gate Park and this amazing garden. Oh, I am so glad I did…..it really was awesome!!!
Here are photos that fail to truly prove how incredibly beautiful and peaceful it is!
The entrance
You can’t go to a Japanese Tea Garden without having tea! And, I do love tea! This is a steaming cup of Jasmine Tea and Arare – a snack mix and two fortune cookies – very good!
These were my fortunes!
This is the open air cafe where I had my tea and snack – it was just lovely!
The garden was a park with winding paths through flowers, trees, sculptures, water features, structures, and sheer beauty!!! I spent over two hours just taking it all in and I know I didn’t see it all!
I had all day to kill, so after spending a good chunk of time here, I wandered around Golden Gate Park (photos were included in the San Francisco Adventure post) and headed back to the area where my hotel was for dinner. After dinner, it was still way too early to head to the bus……which, was at Fisherman’s Wharf and it would have been nice to just go there for the rest of my time, but I would have had to lug around two suitcases and a tote with no where to stow them (it was just a bench by an Amtrak sign), so that wouldn’t have been good! So, the Cow Hollow Inn folks were nice enough to let me just sit and read in their lobby until time to grab a cab to the Wharf. I still got to the bus stop with about two hours to wait, but that was OK – I sat there with my luggage enjoying some “people watching” time. At it turned out, an earlier bus than the one I was booked on came by and the driver took pity on me (it was getting rather chilly) and let me get on his bus, which took me to the train station in Emoryville where I could sit and read inside a warm station waiting for my 10-something train! 🙂 So, I had a wonderful, relaxing day and was the recipient of multiple acts of kindness! Can’t do much better than that!
So, that is the Japanese Tea Garden……I’ll post the photos from the other two day trips in the San Francisco area soon! 🙂
Kim's Thoughts 
Beautiful pictures.❤! I’d love to see it.
It really was spectacular!
this is on my list to do next time I go there
You’ll love it!
…once again too much fun for one person.
Yep!