Rose Brooks

Episode 493 – Friendship & Zen

Back in 1915, San Diego’s Panama-California Exposition featured a Japanese teahouse, situated in a Japanese-style landscaped garden with koi ponds and bamboo. It was a cultural experience that lasted for nearly 30 years, operated and maintained after the expo by San Diego’s Asakawa family, until being dismantled in 1941.

In 1955, plans began for restoring the garden. To that end, San Diego’s sister city of Yokohama Japan presented San Diego with a snow lantern, and a Japanese gate which would eventually become the entrance to today’s 11 acre Japanese Garden in Balboa Park. It took until 1990 for the park to be completed and opened to the public.

By 1999 a second phase was completed, adding exhibit halls, a Tea Pavilion, a 10700 gallon koi pond, and a waterfall.

The park as we saw it today is the result of a third phase completed in 2015 which added a dry waterfall, dragon bridge, cherry tree grove, and camellia and azalea gardens.

The garden gets more than 200,000 visitors each year, many during the cherry blossom festival in March, but today it was uncrowded and peaceful. Truly an afternoon with a Zen feeling to it.

Come along on a walk through the garden as seen through Ted’s camera lens.

Peonies beginning to open.
The first of many stone lanterns
Camellia in bloom.
Azaleas beside the koi pond
These perfectly spaced tufts of grass will turn into the gorgeous wavy green shown below.
50 year old bonsai
Bronze statue of Kannon Bosatsu, the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, who chose to stay in the world after attaining Buddhahood. The statue was made in 1765 by Japanese sculptor Takumi Obata, and acquired by an American tycoon who displayed it at his Mississippi estate until it was severely damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Years later it was bought and restored by a San Diego art collector and donated to the Garden of Enlightenment within the Japanese Friendship Garden.
Standing beside the “dry waterfall”

Next up: more Balboa Park museums!

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