I've taken a lot of photos of cherry blossoms this past week. The weather's been cold, which has been good because it's kept the trees in bloom for a little longer.
On the weekend I had two hanami. Hanami 花見, which means 'flower viewing', are parties where groups of people gather under cherry blossoms in parks, bring lots of food and drinks, and have a picnic
Hanami are all the more special because cherry blossoms have such a short life. The trees are usually at their peak for only a week or so, though they may bear flowers for up to three weeks or so. As luck had it, they were at their best late last week, so the revellers were out in full force.
As I mentioned, I had two hanami on the weekend.
The first was with just three friends. The weather was cool but sunny and really nice. There were lots of other people nearby. One of our group arrived there three hours before the party to hold a good spot for us, near the weeping cherry tree.
After that party, we went out for drinks and snacks at an izakaya, followed by (my favourite thing ever) karaoke. ^_^ I discovered that if you sing Hirai Ken's 'Pop Star', people will do all the actions along with the music video. Ha ha ha...
On Sunday we had a mammoth hanami. A couple of our group got to the park at 6am (!! It was like 2 degrees!!) to get us a good spot. Apparently when they arrived, there were some drunk teenagers who had been there all night and were still wreaking havoc, at least until 7am or so, when they got arrested by the police. ^^;;
The Sunday hanami was kind of organised by some of the group I used to meet up with every week or two, but lots of other people came; there were over 20 of us, including some of my old co-workers and lots of my ex-students from various classes. The weather was much less pleasant for this one, though it didn't actually rain hard, I guess, while we were sitting out in the elements. Ha ha ha...
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