living there 7 years ago. Unfortunately, Rai, you weren't able to join us until the last 2 days of the trip when you first joined this world as a small cluster of cells in your mother's womb.Since you missed most of that family trip to Japan, we thought we'd make it up to you by taking you back to Japan this summer. You're more than 2.5 months old now so we thought you're more than ready for some serious travel.
As you know, Japan is an expensive travel destination and your father is a
cheapskate (as was abundantly covered in a previous story). Those two factors do not bode well for the likelihood that we could make the Japan trip happen all over again this summer. So, we were left to ponder: how could we travel to Japan without getting on a plane?A virtual tour on the internet was not too appealing; we wanted the real thing. Lucky for us, the solution to our dilemma lay just a few miles from
our home in the center of Golden Gate Park. So, on a fine Friday morning, we packed you into the car and drove up to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Entry to the garden is free three mornings per week so that made this trip to 'Japan' about several thousand dollars cheaper than our trip last summer.
To earn the free entry, we had to arrive before 10 a.m. We ran the mile from our parking spot to the entry gate with you staring into the sky as I held you in my arms while trying to keep up with your speedy Mom. We made it just in time as the moment after we gasped through the gate, the ticket window opened and the next group entering had to pay the entry fee.
Soon after entering the Japanese Tea Garden, your Mom reminded me, as she always does, that "this garden is actually better than many gardens IN Japan." When making this observation (every time we visit this garden!), she is jokingly referring to a garden we visited in Tokyo 6 years ago. I had been telling her for weeks how beautiful and perfectly manicured the Korakuen garden in Tokyo is. When we visited the garden, though, it looked 
abnormally unkempt. Where were those gardeners that could usually be seen picking up every fallen leaf, one by one, and making sure that every pebble in the stream was in just the right spot. Your Mom was unimpressed.Several years later, visiting the garden in Golden Gate Park, I could see why her expectations were so high. This garden really is one of the best I've ever seen and, by now, I've seen close to one hundred Japanese Gardens.
What makes San Francisco's Japanese tea garden so wonderful is that the designer was able to plan in so many different scenes into such a small space.There are four main types of Japanese garden. The funa asobi (pleasure boat style) is best enjoyed from a boat on a pond. The shuyu (stroll style) is one landscape that is best understood when observed from many
vantage points along a path. The kansho (contemplative style) is a small landscape garden (like a rock garden) that is observed from a stationary position, usually on a veranda. The last is the kaiyu (many pleasure style) which combines many different elements, landscapes and scenes into one garden with each scene visible only from particular spots along a 
meandering path.The garden in Golden Gate Park is no doubt a 'many pleasure' style garden. The number of different scenes and miniature landscapes that can be discovered in this gargen is remarkable. There's the daunting wooden arch bridge, many stone steps, waterfalls, creeks,
ferns, lanterns, ponds, moss gardens, rock gardens, groves of old growth trees, bridges, shrines, a giant bronze Buddha, and a fabulous 5-story pagoda. One couldn't ask for anything more in such a compact garden!By the end of our stroll through the garden, you were adequately convinced that we had just taken a 2 month trip through Japan. If
we could just add a few neon signs, a temple, and a hotspring this garden would be a perfect microcosm of our journey to Japan last summer. I guess we'll be heading for the Kabuki Hotsprings in Japantown next...
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