Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, USA

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Info. Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, USA

We're visiting the Japanese Tea Garden inside Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Originally designed as a temporary exhibit in the 1894 World’s Fair, the gardens became a permanent feature in the park, supervised by landscape designer Makoto Hagiwara. There are more than 120 Japanese gardens in the United States, but this one is the oldest. Visitors can cross bridges over koi ponds and wander through pagodas and gardens full of native Japanese plants and trees. Inside the gardens is a Tea House where you can try popular Japanese refreshments, including green tea, rice cakes and fortune cookies. The garden’s original caretaker, Hagiwara, is often credited with bringing the fortune cookie from Japan to America.