- Living in Seattle, I sometimes need to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
- Kubota Garden in the Rainier Beach area is the perfect retreat, offering a nature-filled excursion.
- It's also where my relationship with my now-fiancée blossomed when we started dating.
- This article is part of "Everyday Adventurer," a series about embracing adventures that are a hop, skip, and drive away.
When my now-fiancée and I started dating, we would take each other on hometown dates.
It was an idea, inspired by the "Bachelor" franchise, that gave us the chance to share the places and spaces that shaped us. Though we met in Seattle, we grew up south of the city, so making our way down I-5 felt like a return to the places that knew us best.
One of our favorite spots became Kubota Garden in Rainier Beach, which has 20 acres to explore. In a city where new high-rises seem to be springing up on every corner, it's nice to have something that has continued to be the public space that Fujitarō Kubota, a Japanese emigrant who started the garden in 1927, and his family intended it to be.
To this day, the Kubota Garden Foundation has continued to partner with the city of Seattle to preserve the garden as a place all of us can enjoy.
I also appreciate that Kubota Garden is one of the few places that remain open every single day from sunrise to sundown. For me, a Muslim, having an open place to go on Christmas feels like nothing short of a miracle.
When you arrive, you can snag a spot in the small parking lot in the front — you might need to look for street parking on an especially busy day. Grab a map so you can take a self-guided tour to find all the interesting spots, including the bridges, the strolling garden, the Kasuga lantern, and a spring pond where you might see koi and turtles.
The red Moon Bridge is particularly steep and, according to the garden's map and brochure, "symbolizes the difficulty of living a good life: 'Hard to walk up and hard to walk down.'"
Even when there are lots of visitors, you'll still find moments of peace and quiet at Kubota Garden. You can also opt for a free guided tour, which happens on the fourth Sunday of every month. These tours are run by volunteers who always welcome donations. In late October, there's also the two-hour Kubota Garden Fall Color Tour, which takes visitors through the garden's foliage, including the 140 varieties of maple trees that come to life during autumn.
If you prefer to explore the garden your own way, you can turn your visit into a scavenger hunt and keep your eyes peeled for surprises and gorgeous sights. Stone fixtures, in particular, are a recurring theme in the garden: Upon entry, you'll pass a stone sign, and from there you can cross stone bridges or take a closer look at the Japanese stone wall, known as an ishigaki, beneath the Terrace Overlook. When you're ready for a break, relax on one of the benches or picnic tables throughout the garden and enjoy a snack.
When my fiancée and I visited Kubota Garden, we took turns trying to name the trees and plants we saw — a habit I picked up from my mom. My fiancée would tell me about the other times she had been there growing up, and I learned it was a popular spot for homecoming and prom photos.
On other days, we would turn our walks into an activity by asking each other questions using resources like the famous New York Times article "The 36 Questions that Lead to Love," or the relationship questions from We're Not Really Strangers. Questions about what constitutes a perfect day or your most treasured memory enabled us to learn things about each other that hadn't come up in everyday conversation — what better place to do this than a garden where our love was growing already?
We've come back in many seasons and seen everything from the early signs of fall to warm summer days, and every time is a reminder of how much we've changed since our last visit. Kubota Garden felt like the right place for us to share more about our own stories. It was away from the routine of working our full-time jobs on top of running our respective businesses, and it became an invitation to spend more time in nature with each other.
Kubota Garden continues to be a marker of change and the power of finding a place to reflect and spend intentional time with loved ones, and I intend to keep returning. No matter what changes about my life, I know this is a place that will always welcome me back.
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