Yesterday evening, we had a mini picnic on the grounds of the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, under the cherry blossoms that overlook the Kyoto Biwako Canal. Fumie prepared a snack and Anthony brought the BBQ play set he got from his Uncle Marty and Aunt Marci (which I could swear I blogged about when he received it, but I can't find it, so must not have.... [UPDATE: I have now]

The picture above was taken around sundown, with the help of a tripod and a timer, but during the short noontime stroll I took when taking pictures of the main gate of the Heian Shrine featured in the previous post, I also witnessed many people enjoying their own hanami — cherry-blossom viewing. The rest of this post's pictures are from that stroll.

The park bench (tiny, behind some blossoms) in the center of this next shot is the one that we were sitting on some hours later when the picture above was taken.

These boats run only during cherry-blossom season, and cost about $10 for a half-hour trip. I've yet to do it, but am in no rush since it would only mean more photos to post, and I have enough for now. This was taken from about the same vantage point as the top picture in the Easter Night Cherry Blossoms post.

The next shot is looking back at the bridge from which the previous shot was taken. The bridge is for Jingumichi, the road that runs under the Heian Shrine gate. (The runners shown in this post are actually on the bridge, though it my not seem like it.)

The building in the upper-right is the National Museum of Modern Art, which despite being directly across the street/canal from my place, I've never been to except for their cafe.

I'm going to go ahead and put another shot of the bridge, because I really like it...

So many bridges. The two pictures above were taken from a second bridge. Turning around to look the other way, and I see another hanami boat, and the Lake Biwa Canal Museum of Kyoto (which you might remember from the second picture in this post the other day). The Kyoto Zoo is beyond the cherry trees on the left-side bank.

Crossing the bridge and entering the grounds of the Municipal Museum of Art from the rear (the museum mentioned in the first two shots, not the National Museum of Modern Art, which is across the street, separated by the huge main get of the Heian Shrine), I found plenty of people enjoying the blossoms....

The lady is likely wearing a mask because of pollen allergies. Both the allergies and the masks are quite common this time of year. Her view across the pond is of the two ladies seen in the next picture, with the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art as the backdrop...

They're overlooking the canal, and probably watched me take a bunch of the pictures above.

Finally, I saw these happy ladies walking along the Shirakawa River.

(The “home” here is mine; the guy with the bike in the background is directly below my balcony — the bridge in the background can be seen from above in a couple of recent posts :-)

When they arrived to where I was standing, the ladies noticed the same view that I did in the previous post, so asked me to take their picture. They had these weird camera-type things that seemed to use extremely thin strips of plastic covered in a layer of photosensitive material, wound about little spools. Very odd. I must research what they were....