My spouse and I visited the Japanese Friendship Garden (JFG)
in Balboa Park on a Thursday morning in early July 2018. The garden charges $12
admission per adult. The garden is open almost daily from 10:00 am until 6:00
pm, except for Saturdays when it closes early at 3:30 pm. A tea house that
offers self-serve food and drinks is positioned at the entrance; however, it
offers only outdoor seating and no restroom facilities. (There are restrooms
within the garden, although they are not near the main entrance.)
The Japanese Friendship Garden opened in 1991 to commemorate
the relationship between the city of San Diego and its sister city of Yokohama
Japan. The 12-acre garden exhibits Japanese qualities of serenity and
simplicity and uses authentic plantings and garden designs, including a koi
pond and other water features and a few traditional Japanese buildings. Over
the years, additional phases of the garden added a huge cherry tree grove
(which must be stunning in the spring when the trees blossom!) and other
flowering shrubs. When we visited, work was underway to add what appeared to be
a waterfall/water spillway-type feature. Exploring the entire garden required a
lot more walking that we expected, half of which was up and down a gently
curving switchback path runs from the top to bottom of the canyon. (It was hot
on the day that we visited, and we wished that we had brought some water with
us.) Although we did not walk the entire garden to reach the bottom, it
appeared that there was a building down there that offered restroom facilities.
We enjoyed our walk through the Japanese Friendship Garden,
but we wish we had been prepared for how large it is.
