Sakura!

April is cherry blossom season in Japan, and up here in Takayama ours bloom near the end of the month. The peak was actually during last week, and with the rain we had over the weekend most of the petals are gone now. But lucky for you I had my camera out last week!

This beauty is in Kuguno, near the top of the enormous hill I have to climb twice a week to get to the junior high school

I saw this one in Furukawa, the town just north of Takayama, taken during the taiko festival I went to the weekend before last

Same tree after dark

This one is across the street from my apartment


And the rest are of Garyuzakura, the Sleeping Dragon Cherry Tree, in Miya. It's quite famous and very close to my apartment. So my usually very quiet neighborhood has been full of buses and tourists whom I love to surprise by getting off the train in Miya and walking home. Anyway, the tree is 1,100 years old, enormous, and supported by several wooden beams. Apparently it doesn't matter if you're a tree or a human; once you pass that millennial mark everybody needs a cane ^o^

I spent last Tuesday at MJH with the ichi and ni nen sei (7th and 8th grade in the US) painting pictures of the tree. Mother Nature was in a good mood and provided plenty of sunshine.... I actually came away from the experience slightly pinker than when I began ^_^




Several of the classes from Miya elementary also came on that day for hanami (flower-watching). This is the 5th grade

And a mix of JHS and elem


I got in on the flower-painting action as well

my painting half finished (and what the tree looks like in winter, ha ha)


and the finished product

Maybe not gallery-quality, but not bad for somebody who hasn't painted in like, 15 years, neh?

So that's how I spent a day of work. Out in the sunshine, painting a tree.

Yeay