Cherry blossom season

[tokyo_mb]

A small gallery of photos posted here

Comments

[onespiceybbw.livejournal.com]

is that a canal or a river?

spring has definitely sprung!

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

It's actually part of the outer moat (Benkeibori) of the old Edo castle in Tokyo. Once upon a time it looked like this (second picture down) and this (third picture down).

Aside: Thanks for asking, as the Old Tokyo site I found and linked to above is quite fascinating...

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

You didn't own up how close that was to your apartment ;)

Still, at least I'll get the bigger blossoms later on this month. And the azaleas.

[onespiceybbw.livejournal.com]

okay, now i have another question--the tree in the right foreground of the pic looks like it was deliberately pruned to resemble a waterfall bonsai--do you see a lot of that around tokyo?

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

I don't actually recall seeing these pruned - I walk past them every day - but it would be unusual in Japan if they had not been.

It does however, seem to be typically Japanese to quite aggressively prune urban trees.

Springe is icumen in, sing luBe cuckoo ...

[vilebody.livejournal.com]

Ah. they look lovely. Am just gazing at a very simillarly blossomed tree outside my study window. Lovely.

[naxos.livejournal.com]

nice photos! That's gotta be a nice time of the year to be in Tokyo...

Re: Springe is icumen in, sing luBe cuckoo ...

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

My team were asking me what was a similar sign of spring in the UK to sakura in Japan. I had to explain that cherry blossom does also exist in the UK - and then went on to talk about bulbs - daffodils, bluebells, snowdrops etc.

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

One of the best - either now, before it gets hot and humid or the autumn, after the typhoon season to see the autumnal colours.

Personally I most like the months of October to April here - the rest of the year I could quite happily survive it being many degrees cooler and about half as humid!

[tokyo-mb.livejournal.com]

I did, if you go look at the subtitle of the gallery :-p

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

:P

[onespiceybbw.livejournal.com]

interesting.

Re: Springe is icumen in, sing luBe cuckoo ...

[vilebody.livejournal.com]

Next day after seeing these, driving to work in glorious spring sunshine, and suddenly all of the cherry blossom which was mostly buds last week was simultaneously in full bloom. Beautiful! Now its all falling down all over the place like snow due to typically april wind and rain, but at least for one moment it was perfect!