Wordless Wednesday: My favorite Street in Japan.

 

Cherry Trees and Puppy Dog Tails

These are a few of my favorite things. I took advantage of the beautiful day we are having to get some pictures of the puppies with the trees. Stella wasn't cooperating as well as Elton so I eventually just had to pick her up. There was just too many people near the front gate for her to look at me!

Here are few of my favorites! 

Hanami 2011 Continued...

Ueno park was packed with people just like last year, actually, I would say a few less because there were very few foreigners. Another sign of the earthquake. Christina and I grabbed a few feet of curb between some of the tarps and had our lunch beneath the cherry blossoms. After we finished, we strolled under the trees and tried not to run in to people that suddenly stopped to take pictures skyward. It took a minute to get around this huge group amassed under a tree though. Do you see the kitties?

 

After enjoying the trees for awhile, we headed to Ueno zoo to see their new main attraction- the Giant Pandas: Shin-shin and Ri-Ri (pronounced Li-Li).

At first, we decided the line was doable. It looked like about 300 people in line and a couple switchbacks in the queue. Not bad. After attempting to get in the line though, we realized that that was not the end, just a break in the line to let traffic pass through. The line zig-zagged and winded around several exhibits and was closer to 3000 people long. We decided to pass and instead got our picture taken with these guys:

We explored the rest of the zoo and saw some other fun animals including a 1 1/2 year old gorilla. Kawaii!

Later, we ran in to the guy who's job it is to mark the end of the Panda line. We asked him how long it was to see the pandas and he said, "Maybe, one hour."

"Well, we did come to see the panda. What the hell."

So we got in line and only 35 minutes later, we were panda viewing!!

Since we had no children with us and are not handicapped, we had to be in the back row of the three lines, which means other people heads in the photos. We had about 1 minute to see the two panda while constantly being shuffled and encouraged along as to keep the line moving.

After our panda-riffic time, we continue to the other side of the zoo and out to the Ueno park area. There were beautiful cherry blossoms everywhere and the crowds to go along with them.

Some people were lucky to find great spots along the water.

Or made their own space in the paddleboats and rowboats:

By the end of the afternoon, we were tired and ready to head home, much like these guys:

Thanks for joining me on a fun day, Christina!

Hanami 2011

Christina and I headed to Ueno Park today to check out the cherry blossoms, have lunch and see the new panda-sans! It was a beautiful spring day. I am going to miss the cherry blossoms when we leave Japan. It's such a beautiful time of year. More pictures later!

Hanami in Ueno

Last Saturday, Glenn, Stella and I headed to Ueno Park in Tokyo to enjoy a hanami party with friends. Glenn and I showed up around lunch time, but Seth and Rett got there at 7 am just to find a spot to put their tarp. You have no idea how many people were there! It was packed! Stella had to be carried through the park because it was too busy to let her walk!

It was a wonderful day of picnicing, drinking, enjoying friends and meeting new Japanese friends. Mostly, the just brought us drinks and acted drunk, but they were still fun too!

The Js definitely know how to picnic. There were spots reserved for companies and boxes all set aside. Don't wear your shoes on the plastic either! It's just like in Japanese homes...

It was dark before we knew it and definitely time to head home! Stella's second adventure in Japan. I think she was a little overwhelmed, but she did great.

Cherry blossom season is definitely one of my favorite times in Japan. I'm happy that we'll be able to experience 3 of them while we're here!

Cherry Blossoms

The cherry blossoms were beautiful yesterday so I had to walk around and take a few pictures to share. I'm really hoping the trees will still be in bloom when we get to Kyoto on Thursday, but I'm not sure if they will be. We leave on Thursday morning for 5 days in Kyoto and Hiroshima and I can't wait! Happy 3rd Anniversary, baby!This is our street, our house is down at the end on the left (you can't really see it)