More cherry blossoms

Oh dear. I'm sure you're getting tired of touristy pictures but I've been off visiting touristy places again so you may have to bear with me. The cherry blossom season is winding up. See, I told you it was only a few days. The trees in the neighborhood still look pretty good today but if it rains tomorrow the blossoms will be gone.

I think I mentioned that people in Japan like to picnic under the cherry trees during the flower viewing week, but really, there are always so many people under the trees one can hardly walk through them all. The parks are filled with vendors selling crackers, snow cones, noodles, squid etc. and sometimes the piles of garbage leftover from all the partakers catch the eye more than the flowers do!

There is a saying hana yori dango which means that people are more interested in the food that is being sold by the vendors than in the flowers themselves and this is especially true when it comes to the drinking parties held under the cherry trees. The underlings in the company will be sent to the park hours ahead of time (sometime the night before!) to spread the plastic sheets under the best tree and make sure no one usurps the plotted out area before the rest of the employees show up in the evening laden with extra food and beer. Things can get quite out of hand with everyone singing and dancing and becoming quite drunk before the end of the night.

(Picture of flower viewing parties from the Internet)

There was a time when I found it interesting to just see the normally subdued and formal Japanese businessmen falling over drunk, losing all manner of propriety with their neckties tied around their foreheads and accosting girls or sleeping with their heads in a box of noodles. Nowadays I prefer to visit the parks before the parties start or when the trees are starting to lose their petals and all the party-ers have gone home to nurse their hang-overs.

This morning Tetsu and I went to the neighboring city to take a look at the weeping willow tree that adorns the playground in front of the elementary school and though the blossoms were at their best last week (and there was a festival during that time) Tetsu chose this morning (6:30!) because he knew that there wouldn't be many people there. (But there were some!) Many beautiful cherry trees bordered the playground but this one is over 450 years old!

And yesterday I went past a beautiful display of cherry trees in a neighborhood park so I pulled over and took a shot. The sky was threatening to rain so the dark clouds made an interesting contrast to the pale pink trees.

And a last closeup picture of a cherry tree I walked by today. This must be a different kind of cherry because the petals are a darker shade of pink and it was just partly in bloom whereas all the other trees were beginning to look tired.

Tetsu and I ought to plant a cherry tree but I have a feeling it takes a few decades for the trees to produce nice flowers and I'm not so good in the garden anyway. And I have nothing against the hana yori dango phrase, so maybe we'll just enjoy some snacks while looking at my pictures!