San Jose's Japanese Friendship Garden

After a company picnic in San Jose last weekend, Sak, Penga-Sis and I decided to check out the nearby Japanese Friendship Garden to walk off a few of the many calories we consumed.

If you're looking for a pretty walk that's also free of charge, definitely check this garden out! It's fairly large, with plenty of benches to sit at, and the grounds are well kept.

One of two(?) entrances

The water in the pond was a ridiculous bright green due to an abundance of algae.  Maybe some algae eating fish in addition to koi would be good? Or maybe the sudden warm whether spurred the slimey growth?

There were quite a few birds out on this particular sunny Saturday.

I'm sorry this one's kinda..gross. But this guy was pretty proud of his catch and kept waggling it around :P

Picturesque garden birds in the middle of silicon valley.

There's also plenty of lovely spots for photos or selfies, haha.

Reflecting at the tea house

Random squat

The geese shoulda been a little closer to Sis to get a duck-face group shot :P

This is probably my favorite shot. Ninja! 

Overall, this was a really nice park!  It's sister-city is Okayama. I wonder if they have a San Jose themed garden there @_@. What kind of plants would it have? Poppies?

For the negatives, I was upset at the amount of people leaving their trash out on the grass though. Clean up after yourselves people! Gwah.  And then again at the little kids with their nets and cups trying to catch the baby koi and small fry fish. I dunno about that. If you want to play with the fish, they do have some fish food you can buy to feed them.

Anyway, I'm thinking I should visit more Japanese gardens in order to practice my photography...because Sak and I will be visiting Japan again this Fall! AH I CAN'T WAIT.