Japanese Gardens - San Mateo

We went to the Japanese Gardens in San Mateo. We've been meaning to go there for a while and today was a beautiful sunny day - perfect for garden strolling.

The gardens were built in 1966 as a gift from the San Mateo Japanese community to the City of San Mateo.

And they had help from San Mateo's sister city in Japan: Toyonaka.
There is a tea house built in the simple humble lines of Zen architecture to promote quiet contemplation:


And like all Japanese gardens, there is an emphasis on creating beautiful views and vantage points throughout the garden:

A view looking back at the tea house:


We saw this Robin filling up on Fall berries:

After the gardens, we walked around downtown San Mateo and came across a Taiyaki shop called Sweet Breams. Taiyaki are fish shaped Japanese sweets - basically a waffle-like cake with a sweet filling. I love the fish shaped punched holes at the bottom of the bag to let some of the steam out.

We ordered a"half school" (half dozen) of Adzuki (sweet red bean) filled cakes.
The picture doesn't show the fish shape detail very good. But mmmmm they were good!