Cherry Blossom Adventures

March 31 2008, Inokashira Koen, Olympus 830

Another sakura macro monday. I wanted to get some photos up from my new camera but I don`t think I will have the time. Next week maybe? I have got a great one still on the camera that I want to post…

It just so happens though that a lot of the macro photos I do have are of sakura or other flowers (mainly sakura)- so there might be a few more yet. Last week it was pink sakura (or it might of been ume?) and this week it is the more traditional white version.

During sakura season last year in Japan I took a walk through the park after work to try and get a couple of photos. Inokashira Koen is a favourite park of mine in Tokyo-  for a long while I always lived quite close to it. First as a student and then when I returned to Japan & Shun & I shared our first, extremely small apartment about a five minute walk from the park.

I will definitely miss sakura season in Japan this year - especially with my new camera!

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March 23 2008, Imperial Palace gardens in Tokyo, Olympus u830

Taking photos of sakura has got to be one of my favourite things to do with my camera- I will miss it next year in 2009, for the first time in 3 years but I hope to be out taking many a shots in March 2010.

For Christmas I got one of these…

I am quite possibly in love (Don`t worry Shun is aware- he is used to me falling in love with electrical equipment because in the time I have known him I have fallen for another camera, my mac, the coffee machine we had in Tokyo and now the Olympus E520 you see above.) I haven`t had much chance to experiment with it yet- although I did go take some photos down by the bay the other day when we walked down for fish and chips.

Hopefully next Macro Monday I will have a macro photo from my new camera. I would love to get a macro pancake lense although it will be awhile. My birthday is in February though!!!

I am not, by any means, any kind of professional photographer. I basically just pick up a camera and press the button- I do love it though and have always taken a lot of photos. I hope to improve on my photo taking skills over the coming months so you might be seeing some more of my photos.

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Sakura season is now over and I won`t be here for it next year which makes me a little sad….2010 is going to be a a big hanami year I think!

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It`s the season of cherry blossoms, one of my favourite times of the year in Japan. I take way to many photos but taking photos of sakura is addictive! I have finally uploaded some from the past week or so!!!

The Cherry blossom (Sakura) and hanami (Flower viewing) culture of Japan only comes around once a year, and only for a very short time. It is almost always over within two weeks, which is a shame but it also makes it that much more special!
Last week I spent a lot of time in Inokashira Park with the Spring School kids having picnics….while they were eating lunch it was a good chance to take a couple of photos! The back of Inokashira Park has some great pink sakura!!! Even on the weekdays last week, when the weather was brilliant (warm and sunny), a lot of mums were out with their kids in groups having hanami picnics!! Inokashira is a beautiful park anytime of the year but it comes alive during this season! I also went through the park after the rain yesterday because I had had a private lesson in that area. All the photos from Inokashira park are here but here are a couple of my favourites….

On Saturday I went to Yoyogi Park for Hanami with Catherine, Sumi and some other friends! We kind of decided to go pretty last minute and I mailed around to see who would be interested but most people already had plans, work or other trips but Sumi had decided to have hanami last minute with some friends too so we merged and met up at Yoyogi for some wine, beer, snacks and flower viewing! Luckily the weather on Saturday was actually pretty nice…little windy but still great hanami weather (Better than last year when I went…IT WAS FREEZING!). It was nice to pack a picnic basket, a picnic sheet and head to the park…..Crowded as expected but we managed to find a nice spot!

Photos from the day were here but again here a few of my favourites!

I won`t be around for sakura season next year but will definitely be back in 2010! There are still some sakura left to be seen this year…hoping to go somewhere tomorrow that I haven`t been to before perhaps. Maybe Ueno or maybe near the river in Iidabashi since I have heard it is beautiful and have been past on the train before during sakura season!

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In an effort to improve on my writing I have decided to sign up for Encyclopedia of me which started over at Bella Dia (and which I found out about by reading Laura`s blog here...) I am now almost half way through at K and while today`s entry is not so much about me, it has been very difficult to come up with a K something to do with me….so I present K is for Kokyo!

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Today Shumpei and I went to the Tokyo Imperial Palace, also known as kokyo…although we only went into the gardens! We were going to have a picnic but by the time we got up and left the house it was almost 2pm so we stopped and had Chinese food on the way! Spring is definitely in the air and it was nice to be out in the sunshine especially since the rain is meant to start again tomorrow (It rained from Wednesday afternoon to Friday last week!)

Some of the sakura were already blooming and it was nice to walk around, take photos and just take in the atmosphere. I have only been to the gardens once before, several years ago, with my mum while she was in Japan….I would love to go on the emperors birthday when they open up not just the gardens but the most of the palace…

I took heaps of photos and you can see them all here but these are a couple of my favourites! I suppose this is where the encyclopedia of me part comes in even though I am not in any of the photos….but I did take them all! I have always liked to take photos but have gotten a lot more interested in the last couple of years…

Sakura season is just starting here but I think next weekend or the weekend later will be the best weekends for hanami (flower viewing!)……this is by far my favourite time of the  year in Japan! I will miss it next year since I will still be back in Australia!

It was nice to have the day out with Shumpei too!!!!

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Well Cherry blossom/Sakura season is almost over…Hanami parties have been had and lots of photos have been taken!!! I thought it was about time I actually got around to posting some photos!

I actually went to one hanami party this year, the one I organized (although then we merged with Deanne and Masao from Tokyo Made for their pink party and they basically did all the work!!) and we were a bit early. And basically there were no blossoms. But we still had a blast…and our own little tree!

This past weekend would have been perfect for a hanami (blossom viewing) party/picnic…although it was fairly cloudy it was still fairly warm and the blossoms were out in full bloom! Shumpei and I headed to Shinjuku Gyoen (A park in Shinjuku which is about 15 minutes from where I live by train) and paid our 200 yen (I had no idea that you had to pay into some parks…I was also shocked when we were in Okinawa and you had to pay to use some beaches…Seems crazy doesn`t it?) to enter the very crowded park. It was lovely though. And I really want to go back in Autumn to see the difference between seasons! I had never been before, and I certainly hadn`t seen the cherry blossoms there before, so it was a great day out! I took way too many photos!

Then yesterday we headed out to Chiba to Shumpei`s parents place. We are supposed to go back there once a month but it had been ages since I had been there, almost two months. I hadn`t been since before my birthday anyway and was shocked to find present waiting for me there from his parents and his brother and his brother`s wife. Also after dinner I go a cake with happy birthday written on it. And they sang for me! Birthdays are not a big deal in Japan (Much to my dismay!) but I was really happy (and surprised) that they had remembered and gone to so much trouble!

This was my cake!!

It deserves to be a big photo don`t you think! It says `Tanjyoubi omedetou` which means happy birthday in Japanese! I love Japanese short cake too!!!! Plus the let me eat the white chocolate birthday message thingy! It was yummy!

We also went out to Chiba to see the sakura out there. Right near Shumpei`s parents house is a small creek that has sakura trees all along it. The best thing is that they have lanterns in the trees so at night it looks especially beautiful. They call it yozzakura (Night sakura) and it really is stunning. The photos don`t do it justice but that didn`t stop me from taking a million shots while I walked along with Shumpei.

We also went to see some Shidarezakura at a local temple (Well we thought it was local but in the end it was a 30 minute bike ride away!) we took Holly, the dog! Shidarezakura is the type in the photos…It is hanging down! (I was going to explain it better but I can`t!) The shidarezakura tree in these photos is more than 400 years old!

There are a couple more photos here if you are interested! I love this type of year and I am sad to see that the cherry blossoms will all be gone soon (Although when they are all falling, petal by petal, is also a great time to go to a park cos it is like it is raining flowers!) But I am very excited cos now that Spring has started properly it means golden week is almost here. And during golden week I am going back to Australia for a quick visit!!! Yay! I am so excited to see family and friends, go shopping and go to a cafe and be able to have a nice sandwich. Oh and eat all my other favourite foods. And cheap fruit! Oh I can`t wait!!!

Quick question: When you played hide and seek when you were a kid did you just face away from the person that was `up` put your hands over your eyes and just stand or sit there? My brother used to do something similar to that. He would always go to his bedroom sit down in the middle of the room and cover his eyes…I guess he figured he couldn`t see anyone so nobody could see him. I thought it was just him. Turns out though it is fairly normal for kids to be that stupid and think that that works. A little boy (age 4) in Spring school at work at the moment does that whenever we play hide and seek at the park. It is the funniest thing to watch!!!!

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Shumpei and I play by fairly lenient rules…can`t you tell? Bored at 1:30am last night we decided to play a game to pass the time…perhaps we should have just slept! Last night was the first Saturday in ages that I have been home, doing nothing. It was actually quite nice to have a night in. I won scrabble by the way…

Yesterday we went to Shinjuku Gyoen to see the Sakura too! Awesome. Will post photos soon!!! The flowers are in full bloom now and will probably only last another 5 days or so as well so we are heading to Shumpei`s parents place to check out the blossoms out that way! Luckily the weather, despite being a little cloudy, is actually quite nice!

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Well Saturday`s hanami party is going ahead despite the fact that the cherry blossom god obviously didn`t hear my prayers when I asked for more blossoms (and no rain!)…since there aren`t many blossoms out yet and rain is expected for Saturday afternoon.

Oh well, I have joined forces with Sushizume and they will be holding there pink party for Tokyo Made right next to us. I invited them both a couple of weeks back and she emailed me back to say that they were having a pink party that weekend and could they set up next to us. As if i could say no to that!!!

So if a little bit of rain doesn`t bother you and you can live with lack of blossoms then you should definitely come join us in the park on Saturday!

We will be the ones with the fake cherry blossom tree (according to Sushi…not sure if it is true or not yet though?)…from about 12:00! I am still trying to come up with something pink to wear!

Now I just need to say another quick prayer…

Dear Cherry Blossom God,

Please make all the cherry blossoms, especially the pink ones, come out over night. I will be your best friend.

Thanks and peace out,

Lulu

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The silly people over at the Meteorological Agency and their silly program made a mistake. The cherry blossoms will not bloom in Tokyo as early as predicted….which totally screws up my weekend next weekend as hanami is organized for then. They have released new dates (so far only in Japanese I think), predicting that they start to bloom on the 23rd but I just don`t trust them now. The article here explains that the program they use, with all the data collected through from September last year til now screwed up. I do hope that they are blooming well and good before the 24th…otherwise there will be some very disappointed people…and I am not just talking about our group of people…but the hundreds and thousands of people that who have no doubt already organized to have hanami around that time!!!

I still remember my first ever hanami…and the first time I saw sakura. The first time I saw sakura was the weekend I after I arrived in Japan for the first time, in the park near the university and during the tour of the university a week after I arrived. People get so damned excited about it all. My first hanami party was actually at night…Strange but true! It was during uni orientation and two of the guys I lived with had joined one of the soccer clubs at Seikei Uni…and in April each year, when uni starts, clubs have welcome parties for new members and this one just happened to be in the park at night during cherry blossom time and we were invited to join in. That week was already crazy and filled with millions of other drinking parties (We kind of just rocked up wherever we wanted to, for some reason we didn`t have to become members of the clubs or circles to join in…The weirdest thing was that most of the time we didn`t have to pay either…I even joined a tennis circle despite the fact I can not play tennis…) Basically these parties consisted of people making you drink while singing silly drinking songs and shouts of iki iki iki (Basically meaning down it!!) One of the best parties of the week though was in the park that night….Drinking, red faced men and cherry blossoms…really showed off the Japanese culture I know and love!

I thought I would post some old sakura and hanami pictures from the two years I have spent in Japan during the mad cherry blossom time. Keep in mind that it is usually all over after 2 weeks, less if it rains but it is without one of the best times of the year to be here. Despite the crowds you must battle to find a good hanami spot!! I do hope this years blossoms come out soon, and put on a good showing!

Tomorrow I am going on an excursion with the kiddies to the park featured in photos 3 and 4. We are going bug catching with the kids…and the best thing about living so class to the park is that I don`t have to get up until 8:45 tomorrow. Usually I start work at 9 but tomorrow the parents will drop their kids off at the park at 10:00, meaning I don`t have to be there until 9:45! Bonus. Other great thing…tomorrow is Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ps: Expect to see many many more cherry blossom and hanami photos in the next month!!!!!!! I say next month because who knows when the bloody things will start blooming!

pps: We should so introduce a hanami like custom in Australia…am happy to provide advice for anybody who would like to start it! It is simply the best thing ever. Nothing better than getting drunk with friends while sitting on a blue sheet eating picnic food and watching the flowers! Wjho agrees?

I want to introduce Australia Day BBQ with friends here while listening to triple J hottest 100…as that was an old tradition I participated in up until moving here! ANy others living in Japan want to try this next year?

ppps: I read something last year, don`t remember where, but apparently there are more ER visits around hanami and cherry blossom time due to drunk salary men climbing the trees to get a bit of a look and fallin out. Does anyone know where I could of heard this or read this? Or did I dream it?

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