A few minutes after putting up the previous post (Kyoto City Half Marathon) and writing how it was turning out to be a beautiful day, I was surprised to see that it was gloomy outside, with big fluffy hunks of snow drifting down.

Kyoto generally doesn't get much snow, despite the most-snow-in-60-years winter last year (which I wrote about a'plenty at the time: one, two, three, four, five). We've had almost no snow this year, except a light dusting while we were away on our New Year's trip, and another later in January.

It's been so mild this year that I noticed some plum blossoms starting to show up already in the middle of February, with some trees becoming fully-engulfed a week later. So, when the temperature went over 20C (70F) the other day, I thought spring had finally arrived, but was surprised to see a few flakes of snow the next day (at 10C/50F, no less).

I noticed last year in the webserver logs for my blog, a huge increase in people looking for cherry-blossom photos in March. I wanted to offer them the fluffy white goodness they sought, but because Kyoto's season was so late (and so lackluster) last year, I didn't have much to show until April. So this year, I plan on dusting off some of the many nice images from last April and post them as I await this year's crop.

Note to Bill Souza: with the mild winter we've had, you just might get lucky and see some cherry blossoms in Osaka before you leave on the 29th, but it doesn't seem too likely. However, you should have excellent plum-blossom viewing before you go. Some plum varieties have really light, mild pinkish blossoms, and some have rattle-your-eyeballs brilliant deep scarlet pink blossoms.... either way, you just can't lose.

(Weather update: having written this post, it's now brilliantly sunny again outside.)