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Review:
Located in the heart of San Mateo’s Central Park, the San Mateo Japanese Tea Garden is a quiet oasis of serenity where visitors can go to get away from the hubbub of the downtown urban bustle. Designed by Nagao Sakurai of the Imperial Palace of Tokyo, the garden rests in the 16.3-acre Central Park, which was once the estate of a sea captain and engineer William Kohl before being transformed into the current urban retreat in 1922. The Japanese Tea Garden features blossoming cherry trees, Japanese maples, and bonsai and a tranquil kidney-shaped pond with wooden bridges and alive with koi. Other attractions in the garden include an azumaya (a pretty gazebo), a wooden chashitsu (teahouse) with benches and lovely views of the garden, a shinden, a small shrine to celebrate the garden's 25th anniversary in 1991, and a five-level granite pagoda and beautiful waterfall where people can meditate.
50 E 5th Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401, Phone: 650-522-7434
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