Japanese tea garden at Golden Gate Park

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A decorative moon bridge in the Tea Garden, long a particular favorite of youth accompanying their parents.

The Japanese tea garden at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, an immensely popular feature, was originally built as part of a sprawling World's Fair, the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. This is a section of Golden Gate Park.

Notable as the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, this complex of many paths, ponds and a teahouse features native Japanese and Chinese plants. Also hidden throughout its five acres (20,000 m²) are sculptures and bridges.

A step-stone bridge

Makato Hagiwara, a Japanese gardener who was official caretaker of the garden from 1895 to 1942, was also the inventor of the fortune cookie. A persistent (but likely apocryphal) legend records that the Japanese ambassador, after being shown its features and asked his opinion, gasped, "We have nothing to equal it in Japan."^{[citation needed]}