Azalea-colored Ambience. The Nezu Shrine Azalea Festival, 2015

Spring is in full effect in Tokyo, and at this time of year in Bunkyo City the Annual Azalea Festival at Nezu Shrine is the main event! This year my wife and I went to see the festival a bit later than usual and as a result had a totally new experience!

 We chose to go on the first day of the Golden Week holidays (4/29) which is something we usually avoid due to the heavy crowds. What we didn't know, however, is that the first day of Golden Week is a special day of the festival which includes special performances by local community performing arts clubs. It was definitely crowded, but the feeling of celebration that filled the shrine and spread throughout the atmosphere in our neighborhood made for a really great day!

Despite a bit of light cloud cover, it was a beautiful day, and as always the azaleas looked extremely lovely and provided a gorgeous backdrop for our local shrine. Hearing the music and singing drifting from the shrine's performance stage added an extra special flavor to this year's flower viewing.

Three veteran dancers from our local community hula dance club

Pre-performance practice session

Want to see some more? Here is a link to the Picasa album! As always, thanks for visiting! For my readers who are currently in Japan, you still have some time left! The festival continues until Wednesday, 5/6!

Cherry Blossom Splendor. Hanami 2015.

The Hanami season is starting to wind down here in Tokyo, so I thought I might look back on what was, once again this year, a lovely and gorgeous start of the spring season. This year’s hanami was actually a bit unusual in that it was was slightly delayed and was also unusually short. An unseasonable cold snap grabbed hold of Tokyo right at the start of blossoming which caused the sakura trees to hold back for a few extra days. When the warm weather returned, the result was a peak flowering which happened right at the start of the busy work week. Now, just a few days after the sakura came into full bloom, wind and rain are sweeping all the flowers away.

Determined not to lose against this weird weather, I made the most of last weekend, and also set out to make the most of the cherry blossom season before and after work. I put together a collection of photos representing my best 2015 sakura moments, so I hope they convey the sweet splendor of fleeting beauty that is hanami.

This first set of photos was taken in Ueno Park and Ueno Shinobazu Pond.

I got really lucky when this beautiful ring neck flew in and
perched on the tree I happened to photographing!

This group of high school grads was super popular with
the tourists in Ueno Park; especially the teenage boys. (^_^)

Here are some pics from the Bunkyo Sakura Festival (文京さくらまつり) in Bunkyo City.

I really hope this was a nice look at this year's Cherry Blossom season. There are a few more photos in the gallery which can be viewed here.

初梅花 / First Plum Blossoms of the Season

It's quite early in the season, but still I decided to take a long walk and head over to  Yushima Tenjin Shrine (湯島天神) (a.k.a. Yushima Tenmangu), in the Yushima neighborhood of Bunkyo City, for the start of the annual Plum Blossom Festival (梅祭り). There are very few blossoms to look at right now, but still the Shrine was alive with visitors enjoying the beautiful, albeit chilly day.

Yushima Tenjin Shrine originally dates back to the mid-5th century, but has lived on in the current form that you see here since the late 1400s. The buildings that stand today we're all constructed in 1995 as part of Japanese Shrines' traditional renewal. The Shrine is particularly famous for its long history as a place of study for Confucian scholars during the edo period (1603-1868), but also for its annual Plum Blossom Festival.

Yushima Tenjin Shrine has another, lesser-known claim to fame, which is that being directly adjacent to the University of Tokyo, receives thousands of student visitors each year. Students praying for success in their studies, write their wishes on these emma and leave them here for Tenjin (the primary God of the shrine).

The flowering plum trees are still almost all buds, but I still managed to get some nice floral shots.

If you would like to look at the rest of the photos form this set, please visit my Picasa Album. Thanks as always for visiting!

Hakusan Shrine Hydrangea Festival / 白山神社紫陽花祭り

Spring is coming to an end in Tokyo, and besides the heat, what comes along with the end of spring? Beautiful Hydrangea of course! Known as "Ajisai" (紫陽花) in Japanese, I went to see a whole bunch of different varieties of them on display yesterday at the 30th annual Ajisai Festival (紫陽花祭り) at Hakusan Shrine (白山神社) in Bunkyo City sort of nearby my home. Each year festival organizers setup a shared space adjoining the grounds of the Shrine with Hakusan Park to display nearly 3,000 hydrangea. Although the festival proper has been held annually for the past 30 years, Hakusan Park has been open to the public since 1891 (明治24年), and Hakusan Shrine dates back to the mid-900s in the Heian Period (平安時代). For today's post I'm ending with a simple introduction. Please enjoy the photos below!