The San Mateo Japanese Garden

The San Mateo Japanese Garden offers a quiet, serene destination for people near San Francisco. The garden is considered one of the finest of its type in the state. It was designed by Nagao Sakuri, a landscape architect from the Imperial Palace of Tokyo. The park features a tea house, a granite pagoda, a bamboo grove and a koi pond. The garden is open all year long, but the late winter and early spring are the time when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, adding a reddish, pinkish hue to an already beautiful garden. The garden is open Monday through Friday from 10 am until 4 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 11 am until 4 pm. Visitors can enjoy the koi feedings during the week from 11 am until 3 pm. The gardens are most crowded on the weekends, but still not as bad as other Japanese gardens in the area. The koi pond is packed with fish, a feature kids and adults will both love. Many visitors to multiple gardens believe the San Mateo destination is one of the more genuine parks in the area. The tea house and gardens are available for weddings. Guest limits are around 100 people if guests stand and the rental is available for two hour time periods.