As most of you know, Japan is well-known for its cherry blossoms, but before they bloom in April, we can enjoy plum blossoms. The latter is not so gorgeous as the former, but the plum blossoms are enjoyed by people who can't wait for the spring to come. It starts to get warmer in the Kanto region around the end of February and it's the time when the plum trees start to bloom.
I once referred to Mt. Tsukuba in this posting, to which I went yesterday to take pics. It was by accident that I noticed a plum blossom festival was being held, and I was lucky to have taken the camera with me.
I parked my car in a parking lot near the site where the plum trees were, but I had to walk this narrow and rugged path for more than 20 minutes.
After walking for 15 minutes or so, I reached this point. It was hard for me to walk up and down the path on end, and the old people I saw were taking care so that they wouldn't trip over something on the path.
These are plum blossoms. We can see them almost everywhere in my city, but it was so refreshing to see the blossoms coupled with this landscape. As I had walked on end until I came here, I was already sweating even though it was in the latter half of February.
Are they impressive? I think plum blossoms are enjoyed mainly by old people due to their modesty. But when you take a closer look, they are pretty similar to cherry blossoms.
There was a hut where I could rest and take a broader view.
As you can see, Mt. Fuji is so far from here. But on a sunny day, we can see it from this place. It takes more than 4 hours from where I live to reach the station in Shizuoka prefecture, from which we go to Mt. Fuji, and people often take "Shinkansen" or the bullet train to go there.
This is a view that I could command from the hut. My friends said that when the blossoms here are in full bloom people put up stalls to sell things like "Takoyaki", but on this day I didn't see any stalls. But I felt peaceful amid these trees without people pitching food.
I often say to foreign people that April is the best time to come to Japan, but if you want to see the advent of the spring earlier, you should come to my country around the end of this month and stay until the middle of April, when cherry blossoms start to fade.
