I'm not sure what variety these blossoms are, but they're quite different from the standard white blossoms that are just getting going in Kyoto, the late-blooming fluffy pink variety, and (of course) the deeply rich plum-blossom pinks. The colors are much like the shidare zakura ("crimson willow cherry") that fill the nearby Heian-Shrine, but the tree doesn't seem all that willowy, so I don't know.

I've been busy on Lightroom projects, and trying to get ready for a short trip to the Amami Islands that we're starting tomorrow morning, but I knew this tree was at full bloom, so I [...]

As I mentioned on my recent Overwhelmed: an Embarrassment of Riches post, I've been meaning to write about Hirozou Yasuda (安田ひろぞう, or just "Hirozou-san"), the guide we had for a day on Kakeromajima, one of the small southern-Japanese Amami islands in the East China Sea.

We're getting ready for another trip to Amami this weekend, having visited the first time over the New-Year's holidays. I don't know that we'll run into Hirozou-san, but Fumie has been exchanging emails, so I hope so. We really enjoyed the day we spent together.

I tended to take pictures of Anthony, so most pictures [...]

Well, at least the first that I've noticed. Returning from a trip to the store around 2pm, I noticed a few blossoms on the trees near my place. It's just in time, too, because as I noted in the last couple of posts, the plum blossoms have started to wane. So, I grabbed a few snapshots of them, and even turned a couple of ones with blue sky in the background into desktop backgrounds....

Using the time-lapse sequence I made last year as a guide, it seems that these trees have started to bloom about one day earlier than last [...]

Since we still don't have any cherry blossoms yet, at least in my part of Kyoto (although the first ones should start popping out soon), I'll finish up with the pics from yesterday's trip to see what remains of the plum blossoms at the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine.

Yesterday's pictures were from the free areas of the shrine. It costs 600 yen (about six bucks) to visit the gardens, although that includes a bit of plum tea and some crackers. The garden has two parts, a lower part split by a little stream, and an upper plum orchard.

The trees were [...]

After Easter mass, we made the 15-minute drive over to Kitano Tenmangu, a Shinto shrine in north-west Kyoto that dates from 947, famous for its pink and white plum blossoms. It was my first visit.

We didn't realize just how past their prime the plum blossoms were: the trees were mostly bare. I see now that they have their plum-blossom festival in late February, so we're a month late to the party.

Still, there were a few bunches of blossoms here and there, in deep pink, bleached white, and various colors in between.

I'm sure it's breathtakingly spectacular during full [...]