As I've said before, Spring and Fall are Kyoto's glorious seasons, and this spring seems to be no exception.

(click to see map)

These times bring out photographers like flys to honey, and in that regard I am obviously no exception. Yesterday on the way to the gym, Katsunori Shimada and I stopped by the outside grounds of a small temple in the Yamashina ward of Kyoto (the Zuishin-in Temple) to see their plum blossoms.

Plum blossoms bloom a bit earlier than the cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms are brilliantly fluffy and white, while plum blossoms are more pink (sometimes a very deep pink), and less fluffy.

Here's Shimada-san with his Nikon D50:

There were plenty of other people with nice cameras:

More common, though, were those taking quick snapshots with their cell phone, like this lady:

The problem with all these photographs is that it's unequivocally impossible to capture in a picture the beauty of these blossoms. They really must be experienced firsthand. (I did give a go last year trying to capture the beauty with poetry about cherry blossoms, which you might enjoy.)

Today it was warm and sunny, and we thought that the cherry blossoms around our place would explode into bloom, but they haven't quite yet. The buds are all there and just starting to open, so I expect they'll start blooming in the next day or three. This year's season seems to be about two weeks ahead of last year, where the bloom hit quite late, on April 8th.