Hakone Gardens
Hike Review
Hakone Gardens is a public estate that is owned by the city to Saratoga and is recognized as one of the oldest Japanese-style residence in the west.
Although it is a public place, there is a fee to enter ($12/adult, $8/child).
The trails in the gardens are single track paths that are either paved or hard packed dirt.
There was zero trash in the gardens and was quite pristine.
The fish pond looked very clean with lots of koi fish and turtles.
The main attraction, in my opinion, is the zen feeling this place brings. The tranquility in this place seemed to me to be intentional, and in being this place, one can’t help but catch a little bit of it.
Family
I walked this garden with my mom and my daughters.
What Happened?
Mom was coming to visit, so we decided to go for a short hike. Having heard of Hakone Gardens over the years, I thought it was prime time to finally visit this place and to explore this well-regarded place with an age-appropriate audience.
We found Hakone to be a beautifully maintained estate that had a great variety of plants that are native to California as well as some that are Japanese. The buildings were in fantastic condition and really made us feel like we had transported away from California to Japan.
The highlight for the girls were that because we came early, we were able to buy fish food and feed the koi fish. As soon as the girls threw the food in, the fish would congregate and the girls would be just a bit happier. The highlight for me was seeing a Japanese style storage shed that looked like the picture of the house that I was born and raised in for the first two years of my life. I think the highlight for my mom was just getting to spend some quality time with her son and her granddaughters.
After walking the loop around the gardens, we sat down at the picnic area and ate some kimbap that I had packed that morning. Everyone got to eat as much as they wanted and we drove back down the mountain.
When I shared the pictures of this place with my coworkers, I found out that my coworker’s wife’s grand parents were the ones who built the main gate to Hakone Gardens. What a small world!