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The hanami parties officially started on the Kanda River on April 1 (and run through April 10). That evening included very warm temperatures and a very strong wind. The “shake” in the above picture wasn’t from my hand; the cause was the wind through the trees.
The building in the background is the Four Seasons Hotel at Chinzanso.
The line to get into the Tokyo International Anime Fair is absolutely insane. It starts near the train station (300 meters away), continues through monster-sized buildings, and once you turn one corner, when you think you are almost about to enter, the line turns into an amusement park style line, back and forth, back and forth, etc. Turn the corner again and there is more of the same. Some say it took three hours to get in. I wouldn’t know. Both times I have attended we have bypassed the mega line completely and walked straight in via the “Family Entrance” (ファミリー入口), which you can use if you have someone with you who is 11 years old or younger.
The crowd peaks at about 11:30. If you don’t have a kid to bring along and get in via the Family Entrance I recommend arriving between 2 and 3 p.m. There are no entrance lines at this point in the day, and the booths inside are far less crowded than they are between 11 and 1.
Did I mention there are lots of people to deal with while you try to see what you want to see?
“We took the subway to Nihonbashi. The place was practically empty, maybe because it had been raining all morning. The smell of rain filled the big, cavernous department store, and all the employees had that what-do-we-do-now? kind of look. Midori and I went to the basement restaurant and, after a close inspection of the plastic food in the window, both decided to have an old-fashioned cold lunch assortment with rice and pickles and grilled fish and tempura and teriyaki chicken.” Norwegian Wood p. 342
As promised, I took some cherry blossom (sakura) pictures of the Kanda River this morning. In the above photo some people are staking out a spot for flower viewing (hanami). Blue tarps are always used for some reason.
We sat on one of the blue tarps this past weekend at a hanami we were invited to attend. There weren’t many flowers yet, but the food was great, the company much more pleasant than the non-smiling faces above indicate, and we played loads of tennis with them too.
Everyone (except those suffering from allergies I suppose) loves sakura, but there are three groups who really love the cherry blossoms. They are the photographers, …
… the kids, …
and especially the (old) ladies (with a camera).
Kansenen Koen (甘泉園公園) has only one cherry tree. What it lacks in numbers it makes up for in magnificence as that one tree is really spectacular.
Basho’s hermitage is in the background of the above photo. The river is once again the Kanda.
Watching this guy try to get a picture of his bulldog along with the cherry blossoms brought a bigger smile to my face than the blossoms themselves. Everyone is happy when the blossoms are out. It’s a great time to take a walk and see everyone smiling, even if you can’t get your pet to grin.
Many posts ago I mentioned that we went to the Tokyo International Anime Fair in 2007, but all of my pictures were lost due to an SD card going bad. For Tokyo International Anime Fair 2010 (東京国際アニメフェア2010) I was more successful as my pictures made it to my computer safely.
The venue was the same place, Tokyo Big Sight (東京ビッグサイト), on Odaiba. The weather was poor, but that didn’t stop tens of thousands from lining up to wait to enter.
Detective Conan (名探偵 コナン and also known as Case Closed in English) is one of Japan’s more famous manga and has been catching on overseas lately too with an English-language translation.
Heroman (ヒーローマン) is a new anime series coming out on Japanese TV in April. They were promoting it by giving away giant bags, big enough to hold all of the other freebies we collected on this day.
After nearly four hours of crowds, anime, manga, and more crowds we headed home. On our way we stopped at Oosaki Station and exited just long enough to eat some ramen. You can see our train through the window in the restaurant.
More photos coming soon…
On March 26 we visited Shinjuku Gyoen (新宿御苑) for the first time. It was still a week or so too early for the peak of the cherry blossoms (sakura), but a half dozen of the trees were in full bloom. Hanami was in full swing regardless. The best cherry blossom viewing time varies a bit each year, but this year, like most years, it looks like the first week of April will be the best time to view sakura in Tokyo.
Some didn’t care about the flowers. They were there to play on the grass.
Others came only for pictures of the flowers with some serious equipment.
There were other flowers in full bloom, like these Chaenomeles.