hamarikyu gardens

First off, I want to thank Kirk of Mmm-yoso, for gifting us a Pro Flickr account for a year.

I appreciate your kindness and generosity!

On to today's post....the news they had mentioned that the ume (apricot) at Hamarikyu Gardens were blooming.

So, this past Sunday, we went to check it out.

Luckily it was only a few trees.

The bulk of the ume trees that are in the baien (apricot orchard) haven't even started...whew!

Though it was nice to see the pink with the yellow (nanohana (rapeseed)), though the nanohana is also SUPER early too..

Look how dry everything is...(we finally got some rain/snow on Thursday!)

We stopped into Nakanojima Chaya (which is located at about the middle of the gardens).

You need to pay for tea and treats when you enter the tea house, so this definitely deters the tourists & locals that only want to sit and chat here...

Satoshi and I both had the nerikiri with matcha...720 yen (tax included) each.

If I understand things correctly, nerikiri is white bean paste that is mixed with rice flour to form a "dough".

It is then filled with sweet bean paste then formed into various shapes.

Mine was called kobai (small apricot).

Satoshi's nerikiri was an homage to the 300 year pine on the garden grounds.

Spring is technically still a long way away, but it was nice to sit and admire the pond surrounding the tea house.