めちゃくちゃMechakucha

Hanami – hanafubuki spells the end for 2009

I learned this week that there is a special word for the flurry of petals raining down in the breeze – 花吹雪 (hanafubuki) – which is a beautiful sight of tiny pink flakes floating down from above. My Japanese friends especially love hanafubuki, but part of me felt that this is like celebrating the demise… Continue reading Hanami – hanafubuki spells the end for 2009

Lunchtime hanami

Plastic sheet out in Hibiya Park, shoes off, eating bento with colleagues, sakura petals raining down on us.

Hanami at Nagasaki Peace Park

Does this look like the centre of atomic destruction? It was hard to imagine that these sakura, just coming out, are in the park that marks the hypocentre of the Nagasaki atomic bomb explosion. Nagasaki has recovered and is now a very scenic, cosmopolitan, thriving city.

Nagasaki panoramas

I’ve seen Inasa-san in Nagasaki billed on tourist advertisements, along with Mt Hakodate and Rokko-san in Kobe, as one of the three “million dollar” night views of Japan. That’s why I expected gazillions of people up here enjoying the views – just like the night a few weeks earlier I was on Mt Hakodate –… Continue reading Nagasaki panoramas

Canola in Hibiya Park

I’m uploading too many lunchtime photos from Hibiya Park but today the canola is out, providing a yellow contrast to the sakura.

More Meguro River hanami

I’m walking home from my language class so that I can walk along the Meguro River, and all the way under the sakura canopy – around 2 or 3 kilometres.

Hanami fever hits Tokyo

This is what *EVERYONE* in Tokyo (or so it seems) has been doing today and yesterday – enjoying “hanami” (viewing the cherry blossoms). This is Kinuta Park in Setagaya-ku (around 4 or 5 stations west of Shibuya on the Den-en Toshi Line) mid-Saturday afternoon.