Sakura from Kyoto

Long overdue but better later then never right? So anyway...

April is a great time in Japan. When you think Spring, you think Sakura (cherry blossoms). The whole year they are a brown, drab boring looking trees with no flowers but at the end of March they start to pop up and for 2 weeks at the beginning of April they are at full bloom.

First two pictures were taken in Kyoto at the end of March. The cherry blossoms were really slow to bloom. This winter was quite cold and the whole time we were there it was raining and we didn't see the sun at all.

One of my favourite pictures taken in Kyoto.

But as fast as they bloom they are gone which also makes for a beautiful scene where the ground is completely covered in pink leaves. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

There are parks and areas that are full of sakura trees and when they are at full bloom the Japanese have a Hanami festival. Which is a flower viewing festival. It's pretty much sitting under them eating and drinking beer.

Next post will be some pics of the Sakura in full bloom while I was living in Matsumoto ;)

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Nagaoka Fireworks Festival

Japan's most famous Fireworks festival happens every summer in a city called Nagaoka in Niigata Prefecture, at Shinano-gawa(river). A one hour commute for me by local train :)

The atmosphere was crazy, let me set the scene for you. As soon as I got of the train it was packed and there were police/security ushering people out of the station. I have never been to this city so it was easy to just follow the hundreds of people walked the main road toward the river and bridge. I pass some food stalls and people selling cold drinks straight out of tubs of overflowing ice. It was about 35 degrees and super humid.

People sitting all along the footpath on picnic mats are already drinking and eating, waiting for the shot to start . When I get to the bridge there are police ushering cars over the bridge but hundreds of people line the footpath which kind of looked dangerous because at any second someone could get shoved into the line of traffic. I'm thinking where to go for the best vantage point and thought there is no way I can extend the legs of my tripod in this crowd. All of a sudden a policeman blows his whistle and the hundreds of people on the footpath start running onto the road. I seriously stopped and thought wtf did a bomb go off? Why are they running.

People were running and laying out there picnic rugs in mid air and within seconds the bridge was filled with people sitting down. I saw and ran in a panic too lol.

I have seen a lot of fireworks before but the sheer scale of this was crazy. 20,000 rockets in two nights. The displays were crazy for the finale, there were 9 fireworks fired simultaneously along the river so the whole river was lit up. But that's not all, on top of those 9 wide displays were explosions ontop of them, so it created a massive wall. And that's not all again, they had a special firework which I have never seen before that is fired 650m into the sky and you have to crank your head all the way back to be able to see it.

Just realised how much I wrote!! So unusual of me, anyway hope the words were as interesting as the photos.

げえんきでね

genki de ne

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