Tung's Adventures: Sakura and Hanami's

Deviating from my Korean adventures for a moment. I wanted to post some pictures of the elusive Japanese Sakura (Cherry blossoms) and famed Hanami ( flower viewing and drinking under the cherry blossoms). Be warned there are a lot of Sakura pictures and you may be blossomed out by the end. So this blog will basically be lots of pictures and me finding out how to use more of my camera's functions.

First are the Sakura around Ashikaga and where many people gather to do their Hanami (flower viewing) and drinking. There are also normally festivals complete with food stores selling your typical Japanese fare like Yakisoba, takoyaki, yakitori, corn dogs (that's right), fairy floss (or cotton candy as the Americans call it - we decided to give it the international name of Sugar cloud), toffee strawberries and apples ... alright, maybe not all Japanese fare.

It was my first time experiencing the Sakura phenomenon, and I must say that it was very cool. Some people contemplate their own mortality at this time as the Sakura only lasts for about 1-2 weeks, before falling off and being replaced by green leaves.

The festival stores.

There were also a performance of Taiko by some kids. Watch the clip.

Me and my supervisor. He organised a get-together with his mates and all the ALT's were invited on a sunny Saturday afternoon. We sat under the Sakura and drank for the next six hours. Good times.

Hanami at night is called Yozakura (night sakura) and paper lanterns are hung to illuminate the blossoms for people.

The next set of Sakura are those around my school. While the kids were still on spring break, I took the liberty one afternoon and taking pictures of all the cherry blossoms around my school. You get the sensation of how amazing nature is by walking around the sakura and appreciating their beauty.

I take this path to get to school everyday. It was especially cool riding through here while the blossoms were in full bloom. Now, the blossoms have all fallen off and leaves are sprouting.

These trees are all planted around the baseball field at my school.

Here's ones looking through the sakura at my school.

The final set of sakura is when I visited Tokyo as I heard the sakura around the palace was exceptionally beautiful. There was also all sorts of festivals going on in the area around the palace and the nearby temple. They even had a kebab man there ... yeah!

This is the moat around the palace where people can row boats about.

As you can see, lots of the sakura petals had fallen into the water, so many people wanted to paddle their little row boats around. The line to have a paddle was ridiculously long, once again, reiterating that the Japanese love lines.