Sakura

Sakura (cherry blossoming) season is upon us here in Tarui!  Adam and I have been trying to make the most of it by going out every day to see the progress of the sakura.  Unfortunately, we've been getting a lot of rain lately.

I believe that our town is one of the 100 best spots for viewing sakura in the Gifu Prefecture, or something like that.  Everything is ranked in Japan and everyone is aware of the rank.  On both banks of the Ai river there are cherry trees.  They hang Konobori across the river in March and will have them up until May to give a more festive look to the river.  Konobori are rather large carp streamers.  Konobori are put up for children's day (May 5) because parents want their children to grow strong like carp, or so I've heard.

In Tarui, we also have Asakura park.  This park has baseball fields, playgrounds, tennis courts, etc. and all around the park they have cherry trees.  This past Saturday, Adam and I biked along the Ai river admiring the cherry blossoms and then had a picnic at Asakura park in a gazebo.

Here are some pictures that we took of the sakura.

Thursday, April 2.

Konobori across the river.

That's how big some of the konobori are.

They aren't 100% in bloom yet.

Other flowering shrub

We really like the flowers on these trees, they're huge!

These shrubs are all over the place!

Friday, April 3
Giant Torii Gate in Tarui

Nangu Shrine

Asakura Park

Flowering shrub

Saturday, April 4
Full bloom!
You can see Mount Ibuki in the background with a little snow on it's peak.

Notice the blue flowers on the ground too.

Gazebo where we ate our picnic.
Asakura park

Hay Fever

I thought I should write at least a brief post about Hay Fever in Japan.  I have gotten my information from wikipedia, so take it as you will.

I was rather surprised a while back at how many people were talking about how hay fever season is starting.  I was mostly surprised that so many people actually knew the words "hay fever" in their second language.  I realized shortly that it's because hay fever is so wide spread.  According to wikipedia 20% of Japanese people suffer from it.

After World War II, Japan started planting all these trees to produce lumber.  However, they soon were able to import wood for cheaper and so the trees they had planted kept growing and are still growing to this day.  The problem is that the trees that they planted produce a lot of pollen, especially after they get to be 30 years old.  The result: many people have hay fever.  People wear masks outdoors to help them not inhale as much pollen.  The pharmacy shops are stacked with a plethora of allergy medicines.  Luckily, I only suffered mildly from hay fever.  In general, I've kept going for runs, etc. and been fine.

They also have sites that forecast the pollen levels.  The sites are just like a weather forecast site, except that they show you the pollen level of the day and the forecast pollen level for the next few days.  From what I've heard, the pollen level should be dying down by mid-April.  

Osaka

This past Saturday, Adam and I went to Osaka for the day.  It’s about a two hour train ride.  We were blessed again with being able to sit even though the train was packed.  Kids are now on spring vacation, so we saw more families travelling.  We got to Osaka and immediately took a train to Sakuranomiya.  Sakuranomiya is a park along the river in downtown Osaka with 5000 cherry trees.  

The cherry trees (sakura) had just started to bloom.  The weather was warm, the sun was shining, people were having picnics everywhere, and the sakura were blooming.  When I’m in a nice park like that in a big city, I don’t mind the big city so much, I even start to appreciate how the sky scrapers look.  Having a picnic under the sakura is a big thing here in Japan.  I will be attending one such picnic this afternoon and I hope that it will be the first of a few.  We had our own picnic by what I believe were peach trees. 

You can see Osaka Castle in the background.

This bus is also a boat and drove right into the river.

I have cherry blossom pollen all over my nose.

I think this is a peach tree.

We had our picnic here.

 We planned it so that we walked through Sakuranomiya Park and ended at Osaka castle which also has a garden.  We did a quick walk through of part of the garden before we headed to Shinsaibashi.

Osaka Castle

 Shinsaibashi is basically a shopping area of Osaka.  When I was researching Osaka, it seemed like most of what I found were shopping districts.  When we got out of the subway station, we both agreed that we had to go in a certain direction.  Turns out that we were completely switched around and were going in the opposite direction we wanted.  Finally, we got going the right way. We were heading for the America-mura area where they were having a Kawaii festival of sorts.  Kawaii is (from my understanding) a type of fashion style originated in Japan.  Kawaii means “cute” in Japanese.  We thought it would be interesting to check out since I thought there’d be a lot of girls dressed up in Kawaii.  However, I was a bit disappointed.  Quite a few girls had their hair done Kawaii style, but the clothes were still fairly conservative on the spectrum, I would say.  The events didn’t seem all that exciting either, it might just have been the timing since I thought we might see a fashion show.  After a short while of being in Shinsaibashi, I realized once again how exhausting I find crowds and shopping places.  We didn’t stay too long before heading for the aquarium.

Cotton Candy

 We really enjoyed the aquarium.  I would say that the Nagoya aquarium we went to had more to see and would recommend that one over the Osaka aquarium.  That being said, the Osaka aquarium has a really nice lay out and an easy to follow route.  I kind of like that since you know that you’ve seen everything and you don’t have to keep looking at a map and planning out your own route.  It was also cool that they included otters, sloths, and some other animals that live close to water in their aquarium.  They had one touch tank where we got to pet a shark and a sting ray.  They had signs saying, “Don’t touch the sharks’ mouths.” And “Don’t touch the sting rays’ tails.”  Of all things to put in a touch tank why these?  In any case, I can now say that I’ve pet a shark and a sting ray and lived to tell about it.

This giraffe was made of lego.

Whale Shark

Seal

We had out picnic supper overlooking the sun setting on the port before heading back to Tarui. 

The weather is getting warm here and it’s been around 20 lately.  We’ve been loving it and the warm weather is helping all the trees bloom.  So get ready to see more and more pictures of flowers!