Spring Has Sprung!

It's finally spring in Misawa! The winter actually wasn't as horrible as everyone made it sound, but leave to the Alaskans to be unimpressed.

Spring in Japan is absolutely beautiful. Almost every single tree is a cherry blossom, and it felt like it took them FOREVER to bloom. But once they did, you better believe Mark and I were out every chance we got to capture the beauty.

To start the cherry blossom season, we went about 3 hours south to Kitakami with our neighbors. We took the day off of work, squeezed into our car, and took off. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, upper 60s and sunny. Unfortunately, we went down during Golden Week, which is five Japanese holidays all packed into one week; therefore, it was really really crowded.

Neighbors!

We went to Tenshochi Park, which is a popular sakura, or cherry blossom, viewing area because it has over 10,000 trees in the area. The cherry blossom is very important to Japanese culture. Many companies will send a junior staff member out during the workday to claim a spot under the trees for their hanami, or cherry blossom party. Most people picnic under the trees, while playing music and socializing, for hours on end.

I think this was the mascot of the festival. They wouldn't let us take a picture with it.

The lanterns light up at night for the hanami parties.

There are actually many different species of cherry blossoms, though most of the ones we saw were either white or pink.

Close up of the white blossoms.

Such a lovely day.

Pink blossoms.

One of the holidays making up Golden Week is Children's Day. Children's Day celebrates the happiness of children and their unique personalities. Carp flags are placed everywhere in celebration. At Tenshochi Park, they had carp flags strung across the entire river.

Traditionally, the black carp stands for the father, the red carp stands for the mother, and the blue carp stands for their son. Children's Day was originally Boy's Day, with Girl's Day in February, but they have since combined it to make it for all children.

Due to the longer winter, it took a little longer for the cherry blossoms to bloom, but it was well worth the wait. It took an entire extra week for the blossoms to start blooming up north near Misawa.