Ume in Ikegami Baien contrasted with a stone lantern

Posted on October 18th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: flower lovers guide to tokyo, lanterns, ume. Comments Off on Japanese plum blossom and Japanese lantern

A year in Japan gave me a whole new perspective on the changing seasons, including the flowering seasons. I checked out the flowers in season every month in some of their most famous places in and around Tokyo. I find myself wanting to do the same thing now that I’m back home, something that wasn’t high on my radar before.

Today’s photo is of the ume (plum blossoms) at 池上梅園. Ume are far more impressive against a dark, stone lantern background than against an overcast sky.

Posted on May 6th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: flower lovers guide to tokyo, lanterns, ume. Comments: 1

You don’t have to wait until April for flowers in Japan. The cherry blossoms are all the rage in early April, but you don’t want to miss the plum blossoms (ume or 梅) in February and early March. I took this photo at a place called Ikegami Baien (池上梅園) in Tokyo during the first week of March. The weather was great, and it wasn’t that crowded since it wasn’t a weekend or holiday.

Posted on January 19th, 2011 under Japan. Tags: flower lovers guide to tokyo, ume. Comments: 1

As previously mentioned February and early March in Tokyo is the Japanese Plum Blossom season. We decided to try our first recommendation from A Flower Lover’s Guide to Tokyo by Sumiko Enbutsu, a book I’ll review in more detail in a future entry. So far, I have to say, I like this book.

We went on Walk #37, Keio Mogusa-en Garden. We arrived soon after opening on a sunny, warm, February morning. The train station was decked out in fake plum blossoms to advertise the ume matsuri (梅祭り) that happens from early February until mid-March. During this time period, Mogusaen is open every day, which is good since we were there on the day it is normally closed. The crowds weren’t bad, but things looked to be getting more crowded by the time we left.

Pretty much everyone had a camera. Mine was the smallest and lightest by far. Giant, crazy-expensive cameras are the norm at places like this in Japan. Retired couples (some in their 80s) seemed to be competing to see who could take the better picture with their enormous lenses and tripods both aimed at the same flower.

The ume tree above (寿昌梅) was planted in the early part of the 18th Century by a Buddhist nun called Jushoin (寿昌院). Little, bonsai (盆栽) ume trees surround the bamboo fence around it. Very cute.

Below you can see the thatched roof of the Shorenan (松連庵) farmhouse from the hill behind it. Things actually looked much better in person. It was such a bright day that the sun washed out my photos from this angle. I should have taken them with a quicker shutter speed. Even so, the sky wasn’t blue from this vantage point, even though it wasn’t cloudy. At a different time of day, with the sun not bleaching everything, this same photo may be spectacular.

This last picture may seem like your standard, point-your-camera-straight-up tree photo, but it isn’t. These trees were growing out of the mountain side horizontally.

I’ll have more from Keio Mogusaen, and our subsequent hike (on the same day) and adventures around the City of Hino (日野市), in a future entry.

Posted on March 6th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: book review, flower lovers guide to tokyo, guidebooks, hiking, thatch roof, ume. Comments: 1