First Sakura of the Season

If there is one thing in Japan that it can be said that everyone is crazy about, it is sakura. Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms and in celebration of this sign of spring people party like there is no tomorrow, no joke. At Inokashira Koen, near where I live, people of all ages are eating and drinking all day and all night with friends under the slowly falling sakura petals. Really its quite nice sans the over-drunk folks and the heaps and heaps of trash that is the result of 20 million sakura-revelling Tokyo-ites descending on a handful of the city's sakura tree blooming parks.

Sakura tend to bloom in late late March - early April which is also the time when students are out of school in Japan. The new school year begins in April. The blossoming sakura each year are a bitter sweet time of goodbyes to graduating students and the exciting start to a new year for incoming students.

These pics where taken at Inokashira Koen on Monday. Not many trees were in bloom yet but that didn't stop people from getting an early start on the partying! We saw a few groups of business people, and some young business men who were obviously sent out of the office with the mission to secure ample space for the company o-hanami (sakura viewing party, the chinese characters are literally flower and see put together).

I like this singular flower making its way out into the cold dark bark.





















Here are some ladies dressed in pretty kimono's enjoying their hanami.






















My roomate Carys and I. We vowed to take more pics together. This one in front of a pretty sakura tree.





















Here is the tree sans us lovely ladies ;-)