Cherry blossoms

It's that wonderful time of year when for 10 days the endless concrete of Tokyo is consumed by these soft pink and white blossoms. Despite their extremely short life, their beauty invigorates a country emerging from a cold winter.

This year, my birthday fell on a Saturday and we joined the many thousands of other like-minded locals along Meguro river. It's an especially urban and narrow canal where clusters of sakura trees line both sides of the river creating a beautiful canopy of cherry blossoms. It's quite the sight to behold.

On a day like this where literally thousands of people were cramming into these small streets to view the sakura, it gave occasion for many photography enthusiasts to get out and practice their craft. Now, I like to make fun of Japanese people because it seems to me that they are in love with standing in lines...any line. If there's a line of people there MUST be a reason that people are standing there - so they'll stand there to find out. That's the stereotype, anyway. Well, Shelley served it right back to me saying that if there was a group of people taking a picture someplace, then I would HAVE to go over to where they were and see what they were taking and take a picture myself. Sometimes the truth hurts.

Anyway, sakura viewing, picture taking, family time, wonderful pizza in the park - all in all a great birthday.

I took a few pictures from that day - click on the picture above to see a small gallery of pictures of the sakura and the family.