Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015
sakura spring 2015

I know it's October now not April, we are going into Autumn and not Spring. Even though my life has been crazy Spring did exist and I did enjoy it and I did document a bit of it with my camera, so here they are, this is from my favourite time of year to be in Japan. Cherry blossoms sakura, how magical you are to turn this entire city so dreamy all at once. This spring I went to enjoy sakura in Chidorigafuchi Park around Imperial Palace with my dear friend Ros, it was breathtakingly beautiful. So perfect. I always wish they last longer but they don't and that is what it makes it more special. We all know it, it's all in our soul and it is so special to us. I hope you don't mind me sharing these photos after so long, if anyone is still out there to come see my blog that is though. Thank you for coming to check if you did and I wish you a very happy autumn! (or Happy Spring!)!
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Just found some more sakura photos I meant to post earlier in April.
It was still only last month but seems it was so long ago!

As I mentioned in the previous post, this year I had one of the most memorable sakura viewing ohanami experiences ever in Kamakura with my Hawaiian friend Aron. We had planned it from a week earlier and the weather was going to be okay however the day started raining. Still according to the weather forecast the rain was supposed to stop around lunch time so I thought "good" and didn't need to wear my gum boots "good".

We met in Kamakura just before lunch time but it was still raining. There was no way we could have a picnic up in the mountain where we were going to go so we decided to have lunch before we start our journey, or adventure more like. At this point I still thought that the rain will stop by the time we have eaten. Luckily I remembered this cafe called OXIMORON which I always wanted to check out but always forgot about when I went to Kamakura so there we went.



I didn't even know what kind of food they serve here, but it was a curry place. It was so nice. Beautiful space with great light coming in, even on a rainy day it was really lovely. Pity I didn't take a photo of the cafe space! The above photo is their little shop space at the front where they sell beautiful Japanese tablewares and zakka. The food was divine, I really enjoyed my curry with full of fresh herbs on top: coriander, mitsuba, shiso (ooba) and spring onion. DELICIOUS!

Tableware they use in this cafe was designed by one of my favourite porcelain artists Yumiko Iihoshi (I posted about her work and then shop here) and this series is named OXIMORON, the name of the cafe. I love this OXIMORON series so much and I always wanted to find out what this place is like which Yumiko Iihoshi made the series of tablewares for. So that was really great too.

It was still raining when we were leaving this place. Actually, it looked much worse. But anyway we kept on going as planned, to go on hiking in the pouring rain!
It was the Genjiyama Park we headed, where is known as one of the most beautiful and popular sakura spots around. Well, not on the day like this obviously.

But, it was worth it!


When we reached up on the mountain I received a notification on my phone.

Severe.Weather.Alert.

It was seriously raining, was probably the best and the worst day to come here, we laughed. Hahaha. We almost continued to take even more serious hiking course but we were not crazy enough to keep going and instead we decided to just head back the way we came down to the city.

I don't know how it happened (must have been my choice) but we then took the cute Enoden tram/train to nowhere and then walked back to Kamakura in. the. pouring. rain. along the beach.


We may have picked the worst day ever for all these but it was really fun. Thank you for the wonderful and crazy company Aron! Let's do this again! (NOT) hahaha, well on a nicer day.



Finally it's starting to get warmer in Tokyo and signs of spring are seen everywhere, it's the simply joy. Mimosa trees outside my shop are having adorable little yellow flowers, Christmas roses and Muscaris have come out and flowering so beautifully as if all promised, it's all so much slower this year but it's all so lovely. Soon it will be the sakura season, my favourite time of the year to be in Japan. I can't wait!
FROM TOP TO LEFT:
01.  lovely and peaceful Arisugawa Park
02. Mitsumata Tree (bark of this tree is used for making washi paper)
03. Recent 3 faves: Jona necklace, Chihiro Akino brass earring & bracelet from Paris
04. My all-time-favourite Japanese incense sticks from "lisn"
05. Sweet pot garden I pass often :)
06. Design "Ah!" exhibition at 21_21 Design Site in Roppongi (Recommended especially for anyone with kids, I took my niece there and she LOVED it!)
07. New daily flower decoration book by Kazumi Hirai - full of inspirations!
08. Vintage Japanese paper pockets.
09. Old furniture store in Azabujuban
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
sakura 2013 - Yanaka
Last week I went to Yanaka with lovely Ros and Kat, Yanaka is a really charming little neighbourhood near Ueno I can't believe it myself but I finally went there for the first time in my life (and yes I am from Tokyo!)!. I totally fell in love with this area, it's my new favourite neighbourhood now!
I got there early for our meeting time so I wondered around the sakura filled Yanaka Cemetery on my own and explored this absolutely gorgeous surrondings!! I LOVE YANAKA SO MUCH!!
 I will post about our fun afternoon from Yanaka in the next post :)
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
sakura 2013
It's raining all day today, which means almost all sakura blossoms will be gone. It always feels sad when the sakura season comes to an end after only about 10 days or so but I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy this year's sakura as much as I wanted to. Although sakura came in full bloom so fast, they seem to have stayed longer.

One weekend morning, I left home early and stopped by at Yutenji temple before I went to my shoppe. I had discovered it the night before while walking home, although I always pass by this temple I never realised that all these trees here were sakura trees. It was all too dark to photograph at night, but oh it was so breathtakingly beautiful seeing so many sakura in the darkness! Everywhere it's often lit up at night time where you can see many sakura blossoms but here they only have little foot lights along the main path to the temple from the gate. It was incredibly beautiful in the day light also, but that sakura in the dark were just gorgeous!

I hope you won't mind me doing a couple more posts on sakura here!

Sakura, on instagram
I can't believe how quickly sakura came into full bloom this year, they started to pop out about 10 days earlier than usual and once they started to pop out they were in full bloom before I knew it! Sakura blossoms only stay for about a week so I tried to go and see them as much as I can, just around in my neighbourhood. I will share more photos when I get my film developed later.

Sakura shots from previous years are here:
Kamakura, Jiyugaoka & Nakameguro, Nakameguro 2011 (when they didn't put lanterns because of the Fukushima incident), Jiyugaoka & Yagumo (Meguro), Kuhombutsu (Jiyugaoka), Denenchofu & Jiyugaoka, Denenchofu 2010, etc, etc...

I hope Spring is bringing you many little happy moments like it is to me.

P.S. I didn't realise but my blog turned 4 this March!! Wow!
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Some more shots from my last visit to Kamakura in April. Soon it will be the Ajisai (Hydrangea) season - another great time to visit Kamakura I must try to go back!

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