Sakura Saturday

I'm trying to find my way back to my blog, it has been too long! So here goes... I can't do a daily sakura this year, but here are a few cherry blossom photos from my favourite spot - Asukayama in Kita-ku, Tokyo.

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 29

Remember the stubborn bud sticking its tongue out at me? Well guess who gets the last laugh?! Or the last sob, they really are gone...

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 24

The petals have started to fall... I don't work again until Tuesday and I doubt there will be anything left, sigh!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 23

The petals are starting to change colour... Sniffle!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 22

I worked offsite for a different department on Friday and Saturday, and the weather over the weekend was pretty bad - rain and wind, so I wasn't sure what was awaiting me when I went out for a look at lunch today. I had no reason to be worried, my tree is now at peak blossom and is a gorgeous mass of pale pink puffs!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 17

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 16

The rain stopped while a coworker and I were having lunch so we were able to enjoy the few remaining cherry blossoms as long as we watched out for puddles! And I'm fairly certain I got the wrong spot yesterday - blame it on the rain.

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 15

The blossoms on this year's tree exploded over the weekend and what was a mass of pink buds turned into a mass of puffy pink flowers - very bedraggled wet flowers, that is! What with the mass of flowers weighing down the branches I couldn't even be certain I had the right branch... And my iPhone did not want to cooperate and focus so I had to use my camera, juggling that and my umbrella in the rain.

But, even wet and bedraggled as they are, The Blossoms are gorgeous. I'm hoping against hope that it will be somewhat nicer weather tomorrow so I can enjoy them a little bit longer...

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 11

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 10

So so close!

Sakura Watch - Day 9

It's rainy and cold and miserable out, but the branch is just about to turn into a mass of pink!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 8

The branch waited for me! :D

Pink buds juuuust waiting to burst!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 5

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 4

There is pink! There is pink!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 3

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 2

This year's chosen branch is still full of tightly closed buds, but a nearby tree is already at full bloom!

Sakura Watch 2013 - Day 1

When I posted the sakura photo on Saturday I didn't think actual sakura were anywhere nearby, but with the Tokyo Meteorological Office giving official word that sakura season was upon us, well...

The sakura near me are still mostly buds, but here is day one!

Almost here...!

Seasonal sights

Summer in Japan is hot and sticky and ugly. Winter, in poorly insulated and badly heated homes, is cold and miserable. Spring and fall, however, can be gorgeous - sunny and warm and full of colour. In the spring it is the cherry blossoms covering everything in pompoms of pink and white, and then raining a snow of petals. In the fall it is ginkos and maples and a host of other trees turning colours from deep yellow to bright bright red. Some people have a clear favourite, the sakura (cherry blossoms)

or the koyo (fall colour),

but others, like me, can't choose just one. The sakura, with their fresh but ephemeral beauty and the koyo with its majestic and awe-inspiring ability to paint an entire hillside a rainbow of reds and yellows.

Well what if you didn't have to choose? What if you could have your sakura AND koyo too?!

Known as ju-gatsu sakura or aki-zakura (October or autumn blooming cherry), there are cherry trees that bloom in the fall, their delicate pink and white petals standing out against the showy vibrant trees.

Sure the sakura were rather scraggly, but sakura AND fall leaves?! Now that is having your cake and eating it too!

Plain white walls

A common complaint amongst foreigners living in Japan is the boring white walls throughout ALL rental properties.  My last place had a few heavy duty hooks that could be moved along a track in one of the walls, allowing me to actually hang things from the wall.  Because heaven forbid you put holes in the wall - you will die a horrible death when your landlord finds them, or at least have large portions of your safety deposit withheld.

But plain white walls are boring when you've grown up with wallpaper (not that I want the pink flowers I chose as an 8 year old!) or coloured walls (nor do I want the oppressive dark navy walls and ceiling chosen for the basement bedroom by the teenage son of the previous owner of my dad's last house) or artwork and photographs hanging on the walls (although I must admit given the past year I'm not too keen on having glass hanging anywhere...).

But anyways...

White boring walls.

I don't remember where I first heard about wall stickers - I think it was another Japan blog but I can't remember... I do remember that I did a quick google search and found this design and knew it would would go perfectly in our living/dining area.  (It isn't particularly colourful, being in shades of browns and greys, but it is comforting and relaxing)  But I didn't order it right away.  U wasn't too sure about the whole idea of wall stickers and so I dragged my feet until one day I ordered it half because I simply wanted to close the browser tab with the store's website (that I had had open on my browser the entire time).

The package arrived in the mail and spent nearly a week unopened before I suddenly decided one afternoon, while I was chatting to a friend on Skype, that I wanted to put them up.  And I did.  Never one to stick to the 'way things are done' I didn't want to make the perfectly round tree shown on the website.  I freestyled it, and ended up with a design that I love and has gotten lots of compliments - most importantly from U!

Not long after I started getting really fed up with the boring white walls in our bedroom so I turned to google again.  We bought some brightly coloured fabric in Indonesia that I am hoping to some day turn into a bedspread/quilt for our bed, so I was looking for a very specific set of colours and design.  Surprisingly it didn't take me long to find exactly what I wanted - with a HUGE range of colours to chose from.  This time U was just as excited as I was and helped me put them up too!

our Indonesian fabric and the plain colours I've bought to make the bedspread...

Our new, colourful and fun bedroom! (the stickers are in orange, blue, and green, and match the fabric perfectly!)

No more plain boring walls for us!