I've Bean Travelling

Following our day trip to Filoli Historic House and Santa Cruz, we spent our next day in San Francisco within the city. We met up with Teddy’s grandma and uncle again, this time to visit the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

Golden Gate Park is the largest park in San Francisco, spanning 1017 acres between the Richmond and Sunset districts. There is lots to see here, but for our visit we ended up just touring the Japanese Tea Garden. This is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, created originally by Australian immigrant George Turner Marsh as an exhibit for the 1894 Midwinter Exposition. Following the fair, Japanese horticulturalist Makato Hagiwara took over the garden and oversaw its transition into a permanent installation within Golden Gate Park.

The garden is a tranquil spot featuring stepping stone pathways, stone lanterns, and classical Zen garden. There is also a small cafe serving Japanese snacks. We tried the onigiri and a cup of Hojicha tea.

We spent about an hour at the garden and then we took a walk through the western end of the park.

We went onward all the way to Ocean Beach on the west coast of San Francisco. The sand dunes were too much for our stroller to handle so we just walked along the adjacent path.

We had early dinner reservations at Thanh Long, a Vietnamese restaurant specializing in roasted Dungeness crab. We enjoyed a delicious meal with a side of their famous garlic noodles. No photos since we ate it up too quickly!

That was a wrap on our day around San Francisco. The next day we would be crossing the Golden Gate Bridge for a visit to Muir Woods.