{"id":175,"date":"2006-04-08T15:18:58","date_gmt":"2006-04-08T06:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-04-08\/175"},"modified":"2007-06-30T20:27:49","modified_gmt":"2007-06-30T11:27:49","slug":"diago-temple-cherry-blossoms-with-a-desktop-background-bouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-04-08\/175","title":{"rendered":"Daigo Temple Cherry Blossoms (with a desktop-background bouns)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n \n

\n\nIt's a lackluster cherry-blossom season this year in that for whatever\nreason, the trees are not blossoming all at once but each at their own\npace. Looking out the living-room window, for example, I see one<\/span> tree that\nhas been in full bloom for almost a week<\/span> and the one right next to it just\nbarely starting.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nYet, similar to the popular bumper-sticker adage “a bad<\/span> day at golf\nis better than a good<\/span> day at work”, it's still a pretty<\/span> darn lovely\nweek. This morning I needed<\/span> something from the convenience store, and when\nI stepped<\/span> out the front door, had my breath taken away by the heavenly\nwhite as far as the eye could see. Imagine living in an area that got just\none good snow a year,<\/span> and stepping out the front door not having known that\nthe pristine, serene white awaited you that morning. That's sort of the\nfeeling I get<\/span> every time I go<\/span> out. It's hard to<\/span> describe (although I did<\/span>\ntry once, with poetry<\/a>,\nthat no one seems to have liked.)\n\n<\/p>

\n\nYesterday before going to the gym<\/a>, Shimada-san and I\nstopped<\/span> by a temple<\/span> near the gym that's well known for its blossoms. It was quite<\/span> nice.\n\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n

We strolled about on two long cherry-tree lined lanes, which sit\noutside the main temple area. (The two lanes intersect at the center of this\nmap<\/a>.) Most of the trees were in some stage of bloom. In the picture<\/span>\nabove, which is looking north up one of the lanes, you can see the trees on\nthe right (background and out of focus) are not as fully in bloom as those\non the left. The foreground<\/span> in-focus branch is even less in bloom. But\nstill, it was beautiful.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nIt was crowded, which usually means ugly<\/a>, but in this case it\nwasn't. Perhaps because it's on a temple's<\/span> grounds, no one was smoking, nor\ndrinking, nor sitting on blue vinyl sheets eating smelly bento lunches.\nPeople were there to enjoy, and people did. I was there<\/span> with my Nikon D200<\/a> and was not\nalone. There were a lot<\/b> of very serious-looking SLR cameras, both\ndigital and film. So, despite the crowds, the ambiance was relaxed and\npleasant, and I enjoyed<\/span> myself very much.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nAll in all, I took about<\/span> 250 photos yesterday (of blossoms and of Anthony\ngetting a haircut<\/span>), so now have the pressure that I have<\/span> to go through them\nand process them. That'll take a while,<\/span> and certainly be compounded by more\nphotos today and tomorrow and so on, but I wanted<\/span> to post at least one\npicture which captured the mood. I chose<\/span> the one above because it shows the\ncrowds, yet exudes a feeling<\/span> of calm and beauty. It also gives<\/span> a sense<\/span> of\ndepth: the white puffs just go on and on and on.\n\n<\/p>

\n\nAs a bonus, I'll throw in a shot which makes a nice<\/span> desktop background:\n\n<\/p>\n\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n\n

\nThe image above links to a higher-resolution version<\/a>\n(1,600 × 1,200), which should be big enough for most desktops. If you need<\/span> larger, let me know (the original is more than four times larger).\n\n<\/p>

\n\nI'm now using this as my desktop background, switching from the Katsunori\nShimada photo at the top of this post<\/a>, which I'd been\nusing since the fall. I'll probably switch back after a while,<\/span> as I\ngenerally<\/span> prefer less whiteness in my desktop background, but for now, it's\nall about the blossoms.\n\n<\/p>\n\n

UPDATE: more cherry-blossom backgrounds<\/a> from a different<\/span> trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It's a lackluster cherry-blossom season this year in that for whatever reason, the trees are not blossoming all at once but each at their own pace. Looking out the living-room window, for example, I see one tree that has been in full bloom for almost a week and the one right next to it just barely starting. <\/p>

Yet, similar to the popular bumper-sticker adage \"a bad day at golf is better than a good day at work\", it's still a pretty darn lovely week. This morning I needed something from the convenience store, and when I stepped out [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8,2,6,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}