sakura walk

Lately, I've been going on sakura (cherry blossom) walks in the afternoons.

Thursday and Friday I walked around Sakuragaoka and Asahigaoka. These two neighborhoods have sakura (cherry blossom) trees planted in front of almost every home.

Saturday it rained, so I couldn't show Satoshi the sakura in our neighborhood, but Sunday was clear. The skies weren't blue, in fact there was an ugly haze, but at least there wasn't any rain or wind.

From our place we walked to Sakurai, where I showed Satoshi the huge sakura tree. A lot of the blooms had fallen since I had discovered it, but Satoshi was still impressed by the size of the tree.

Then we went to Suigetsu Park, where I wanted to show him this shidarezakura(weeping cherry) tree.

It was actually on the property of the apartments next to the park. (On Friday, I trespassed in order to take the photo, there are 2 men in the photo also, I think they were trespassing also, they didn't even notice me, I guess they were in awe of the tree).

From Suigetsu Park, we walked to Ikeda and up the steep Satsuki mountain.

We've always seen the observation area from the train, but never went up the mountain.

I'm sure the view would have been nicer had there not been the haze. The walk down the winding road was nice, there was a tunnel of cherry blossoms.

At the bottom in Satsukiyama Park, many people were partying under the cherry trees, actually everyone sat wherever they could find a place to sit!

There were tons of people, especially since the weather was nice. I think we'll be able to enjoy the cherry blossoms for another week or so.