The Tiled Steps and The Japanese Tea Gardens

After visiting Alamo Park and the Painted Ladies, and later Ocean Beach, we headed in search of the Tiled Steps at Golden Gate Heights.  The Tiled Steps are an outdoor staircase, with a total of 163 steps, which climb the face of a steep hill.  The staircase was beautified with a stunning mosaic by the local community, the Golden Gate Heights Neighbourhood.  The steps face west, overlooking Ocean Beach in the distance.

The job was a collaborative effort, involving several groups as well as apparently receiving some public funding.  The project must have taken some time to complete.  163 steps, and Lord knows how many tiles on each step.  The design contains stars, flowers, fish, plants, birds, bugs and many other finer details.  It also contains the names of many people, no doubt local people and/or contributors to the project.  The broader images, covering many steps, are features such as the sun and its rays or the tentacles of some sea creature or ocean currents carrying a school of fish.

The project was a collaborative effort.

The Tiled Steps attract many visitors.

The local community of Golden Gate Heights took an otherwise boring, tiring staircase and turned it into a pleasurable work of art.

Here, some fish appear to be carried along by an ocean current.

Some of the finer details.

From the top of the Tiled Steps looking down...ultimately to Ocean Beach.

Jean's knee not currently being the best, she made no attempt to climb the steep Tiled Steps.  Once we were finished here, we went the short distance to the Japanese Tea Gardens.  One hot chocolate and iced green tea later, we toured the Gardens, which were pleasant and pretty.  We saw Buddha, Japanese cultural architecture, several plants that resembled giant bonzais, ponds with fish swimming, a circular bridge, Japanese maples, and other plants of various shapes and sizes.

Inside the Japanese Tea Gardens

Typical Japanese cultural architecture

A circular bridge