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Friday Open Thoughts: A Trip to the Tea Garden

by: slksfca

Fri Mar 18, 2011 at 06:00:00 AM EDT

( - promoted by RiaD)

slksfca :: Friday Open Thoughts: A Trip to the Tea Garden

This week seemed like a good moment to pay a visit to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park (it's not Old Kyoto, but it is within walking distance). Foggy weekdays are my favorites there: a nice, gentle ambient light - and less tourists to jostle one. Well, normally anyway; there were lots and lots of visitors on Tuesday (guess I wasn't the only one with Japan on my mind). That made it challenging to get the kind of atmospheric pics I was after, but I must admit that most folks were pretty considerate about not walking into the frame.

Anyway, these are among the best of Tuesday's pics.

This bronze Buddha was cast in 1790 in Tajima, Japan and has been in the Tea Garden since 1949. I first made his acquaintance in 1965; I was ten, and he was a lot older (he still is). We've been friends ever since.

Welcome to Friday Open!

Tags: Japan, Golden Gate Park, Japanese Tea Garden, open thoughts, photography, (All Tags)

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Friday Open Thoughts: A Trip to the Tea Garden | 11 comments

Yeah! I remember the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park! (14.60 / 5)

I visited the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park years ago, once back in the early 1970's, and again back in the late 1980's, and it's clearly still the same beautiful place that it was back then!

Happy, happy, happy! Riff, Bernardo, the Jets and Sharks, along with Tony and Maria, will be making a one-night rendez-vous at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in mid-November of this year, as part of their Big Screen Classic Film Series, and I purchased and printed out my ticket for the screening of this great, goilden oldie but keeper of a film. I'm so glad I was able to purchase my ticket well in advance! (hint, hint!)

I was browsing on the Coolidge Corner Theatre's website, under their Programs schedule, in the Big Screen Classics section, and, at the end, there it was! Ahhh, yes!, I thought, and set to work purchasing and printing out my ticket in advance.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

by: mplo @ Fri Mar 18, 2011 at 10:11:00 AM UTC

I'm excited for you :-) (15.00 / 4)

A few years ago I went to a sing-along WSS at our own Castro Theater. They do sing-along movies all the time; in fact they're having a sing-along Wizard of Oz next weekend, which should be fun. Of course, true devotées of a particular movie probably don't want to attend such an event - but the Castro can be a rowdy venue for any film, with audience members talking back to the Big Screen, often hilariously. (I remember my best friend and I getting rather huffy at a screening of Dark Victory many years ago when, during Humphrey Bogart's big melodramatic speech, some queen yelled out, "Oooh, what got into her?" - though we did end up laughing along with the rest of the audience.)

But as an exercise in communal fun (as opposed to watching a DVD at home), it can't be beat.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. ~Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

by: slksfca @ Fri Mar 18, 2011 at 15:11:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thank you, Scott! (14.60 / 5)

Although I don't reside in the San Francisco area, I have read and heard a great deal about the Castro Theatre, which I've also seen pictures of, both inside and out, and it looks like a beautiful theatre for showing great classic films such as West Side Story and Wizard of Oz, as well as many other great classics.

It sounds as if you and your best friend had lots of fun at the Dark Victory screening, and were able to get a huge laugh out of it, along with the rest of the audience, when somebody in the audience yelled. Sounds like a riot!

This:

But as an exercise in communal fun (as opposed to watching a DVD at home), it can't be beat.

is something that I wholeheartedly agree with, Scott, and it's especially true of a great film such as West Side Story It's also one of the reasons I'm always so excited whenever the film West Side Story is scheduled to come to our area. Mmmmm...I can't wait! Since West Side Story is my alltime favorite film, I'd see it if it came around tonight or tomorrow, in a heartbeat, in addition to the Coolidge Corner Theatre screening that's coming in mid-November of this year. It's months off, I know, but hey...what the heck!

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

by: mplo @ Sat Mar 19, 2011 at 02:33:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

teahouse (14.50 / 4)

your pictures made me think of this

& now i'm going back to bed
:(

"Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger,
how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man?"
~The Patrician in 'Snuff' by Terry Pratchett

by: RiaD @ Fri Mar 18, 2011 at 14:42:30 PM UTC

Nice tune to start the day with :-) (11.50 / 4)

Thanks, Ria - and I hope you feel better soon!

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. ~Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

by: slksfca @ Fri Mar 18, 2011 at 14:53:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

My visit there was cut short (15.00 / 5)

Wasn't long before I got frustrated at the crowdedness - and then the fog turned to rain. Normally I'd have stayed for tea and waited it out, but there was a line at the teahouse so I snapped one last, wet pic and headed for home.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. ~Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

by: slksfca @ Fri Mar 18, 2011 at 14:48:28 PM UTC

Fog, rain and all, the Japanese Tea Garden is a beautiful spot, and that's a beautiful picture, Scott. (15.00 / 3)

Thanks for sharing it with us. I can identify with your frustration with the big crowds and long lines.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

by: mplo @ Sat Mar 19, 2011 at 02:37:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh this brings back nice - really nice memories (15.20 / 5)

I used to live near the park and we often went to the tea garden. Thank you for these lovely, sweet photos. Appropos. Is there still a merry-go-round there?

I lived there in the sixties - heady times. I was young and tender hearted. I'm not young but for some odd reason I remain somewhat tender hearted.

Thank you - Domo arihato. slkfsca

For who could have foretold
That the heart grows old.
W.B. Yeats

by: Xanthe @ Sat Mar 19, 2011 at 02:12:49 AM UTC

sorry - arigato - (15.00 / 3)

For who could have foretold
That the heart grows old.
W.B. Yeats

by: Xanthe @ Sat Mar 19, 2011 at 02:13:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes (12.50 / 2)

The merry-go-round is still there. Some nice day soon I'll stroll over and get a pic of it for you. :-)

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. ~Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

by: slksfca @ Sat Mar 19, 2011 at 18:21:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cool, but eerie, just the same (12.40 / 5)

Ever wonder what the fourth-largest recorded earthquake since 1900 sounds like? The Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics (LAB) has posted the eerie sound online. The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), a network of underground observatories more than a thousand meters below sea level, made the chilling recording as the quake struck.
According to Science Daily, the sounds of Japan's 9.0-magnitude quake "have been accelerated 16 times so that they can be audible to human ears." The red and yellow colors on the spectogram represent the most intense parts of the quake. You can also listen to the first and second aftershock on the LIDO site.
In the video above, the sounds of the quake play over the images of the tsunami's destruction.

Link with even more links.

Direct link to video

by: Timbuk3 @ Sat Mar 19, 2011 at 04:13:10 AM UTC

Friday Open Thoughts: A Trip to the Tea Garden | 11 comments

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