After a hard rain, it always is a beautiful day the day after, making today’s walk to office even lovelier what with the blue skies highlighting the sakura trees, that has blossomed in its prime, lining the whole Sakura avenue in front of the office. And this week is even lovelier what with the sakura petals falling, as if it’s snowing with pink and white petals.
Our office, masked with sakura blooms.
Been waiting for weeks for this weather. Thankfully, the great weather came on a weekend when most of the sakura where already in full bloom, roughly 80%. Of course, it’s gonna be a busy weekend.
First destination for the sakura season: mobile sakura matsuri (cherry blossoms festival) traversing the 4.5 km Ooka River. There were so many people as expected. But I’m happy I was lucky enough to take some shots of “serenity” and not chaos.
Love the last photo.
I also love shots of the sakura against the water.
Hello there duck!
Now these are both our (Atsushi’s and mine) favorite. Reminds me of my favorite line in my favorite cartoon movie Mulan,
The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.
But lo, how beautiful the illuminated sakura is!!
But of course, it being a matsuri/festival, food stalls also line the street selling traditional Japanese street food like yakitori, takoyaki and okonomiyaki among MANY others.
Popular among kids are the candied strawberries, apple and banana.
Ahh tsukareta (tired). But it was fun indeed! Especially since we met up with Atsushi’s friend Kamio-san. I love listening to their laughter as they patiently wait for me while I was busy clicking around.
Time for bed as tomorrow is gonna be a busy one as well. 🙂
Thank you for today Lord! And thank you for technology – with it, my parents can see how big I am already even when they’re oceans away.
Thank you Lord for granting us a great weather that’s perfect for our walking sakura-viewing (hanami). Perfect weather weekend just when the sakura blooms are in their prime.
In order of events.
1. Thankful I didn’t blow my top
2. Thankful I wasn’t discouraged despite meeting overly sarcastic people
3. Thankful hubs and I were able to go to office together and walk home together
4. A guy gave up his seat for me in the train when he saw my badge. A rare occurrence!
5. Thankful to see this early bloomer. I hope to post the morning version soon.
6. Thankful about the good news that Hubs’ parents told us. Thankful for hubs’ sis’ generosity with her time. 🙂
By the way, here’s the morning version of the early bloomer sakura.
Found a new Kitkat flavour! So cute! I think it can actually be a wedding favor especially for those who have a Sakura theme.
The taste? Love it – this coming from a maccha lover. There’s a hint of something mixed in though that I can’t quite put a finger on what flavour it is similar with. Nonetheless, it’s still very good.
This one was today’s office omiyage from Saudi Arabia.
And. Thankful for bonuses and tax refunds. Would hopefully buy the Laura Ashley curtains I’ve been having a crush on. 🙂
Seeing the need to exercise and burn some calories, Atsushi and I were determined to go out and explore even when it was terribly humid what with nowadays being the peak of summer.
I initially proposed to go to Taya Cave and then to the Zoological Garden but thinking that it was already 1pm and we’re yet to set out and the sightseeing places close at 4:30, I urged Atsushi to go to Mitsuike Park in Tsurumi area instead.
Mitsuike Park is considered one of the 100 best places to go for hanami or sakura/cherry blossoms watching in Japan and the only one among the list that’s located in Yokohama. They boast over 1600 sakura tress with a number of sakura varieties.
They even have a variety that blooms not only in early Spring but in October ~ December as well. Curious.
My best friends and I went there years back (and I distinctly remember it was a month before Atsushi and I worked together 😀 ) but we went there towards the end of the sakura season already so we weren’t able to witness its full glory. Still though, the place was still beautiful even with only a few lingering sakuras.
Got above photo from my other personal and teetering-to-being-defunct blog because I can’t find yet my set of photos during this trip.
Now that it’s summer though, the place is wholly green.
Some kids were having fun catching small fishes with their handheld nets.
There was a man-made stream near the bench where we rested and the sound of trickling water indeed helped us relax some more.
I wonder if the designers of this fountain had Zen in mind when they made it.
So yes, even sans the flowers (and sans the hotdogs which we thoroughly enjoyed during our last visit there!), we still got what we looked for – a place to relax and enjoy nature and at the same time get some much-needed exercise albeit it’s just walking.
Thinner us?Hoping.
It’s easy to reach really. One can take the bus from Tsurumi station to get to the place. If you’re worried where to take the bus, just look for the friendly map near the station exits. Direction points bus station is accessible from the train station’s West Exit.
As is typical with any Japanese bus stations, the route of the bus is displayed by the bus stop.
Yes, it’s in Kanji so you just have to memorize the Kanji character of your sightseeing destination which in this case is 三ッ池公園北門.
What I love with trains and buses here in Japan is that they also post train and bus schedules hence very convenient for planning tours.
And mind you these schedules are strictly followed although buses can sometimes be delayed by a minute or two.
Bus fair from Tsurumi station to Mitsuike Koen is 210 yen.
Let’s go there come Spring, shall we? 😀
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A side story.
There was a Book Off outlet by the bus station and so Atsushi urged me to go there after our Mitsuike Koen walk. We went home 9 books richer but 5,000yen poorer. Thankfully they’re all second hand books so it’s really much much cheaper than they should have been. This time though, half of the purchases are mine. Bookworms!
