San Antonio, TX: The Alamo & Japanese Tea Garden 5/24/19

Picture Blog! May 19th - 22nd I spent in San Antonio, TX. All photos were taken at free locations! You can find something special in every city! Information below about the garden. (Information below was not written by me)

About 1917, City Parks Commissioner Ray Lambert visualized an oriental-style garden in the pit of the quarry. His engineer, W.S. Delery, developed plans, but no work began until individual and private donors provided funds in 1918. Lambert used prison labor to shape the quarry into a complex that included walkways, stone arch bridges, an island and a Japanese pagoda.^[2]

At the entrance to the garden, Mexican-born artist Dionicio Rodriguez (1891-1955) replicated a Japanese Torii gate in his unique style of concrete construction that imitated wood. In 1919, at the city's invitation, Kimi Eizo Jingu, a local Japanese-American artist, moved to the garden. In 1926, they opened the Bamboo Room, where light lunches and tea were sold. Kimi and Miyoshi Jingu maintained the garden, lived in the park, and raised eight children. Kimi was a representative of the Shizuoka Tea Association and was considered an expert in the tea business nationally. He died in 1938, and in 1941 the family was evicted with the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment of World War II.^[2]

The garden was renamed the Chinese Tea Garden, to prevent the razing and vandalism of the tea garden during World War II, as many other cities' Japanese tea gardens were being vandalized. A Chinese-American family, Ted and Ester Wu, opened a snack bar in the pagoda until the early 1960s. In 1984, under the direction of Mayor Henry Cisneros, the city restored the original “Japanese Tea Garden” designation in a ceremony attended by Jingu's children and representatives of the Japanese government.^[2]

First sight as you enter the free venue! 

View from the top!

View from the top of the waterfall looking back at the entrance. 

Follow the road past the waterfall and you end up on the old highway ramp.

Following my visit to he Tea Garden I then went to The Alamo. Entry into the Alamo was also free but parking within a 5 minute walking distance was $15 for half a day. $25 for 24 hours. You are not allowed to take photos inside but I got plenty of great shots of the outside! 

If you look hard enough you can see where I edited some people out. ha!