Plum Blossoms!

Maybe I could have a second career as a photographer!  I'm proud of this picture.

We have gorgeous weather for the weekend - mid-60s in February.  To celebrate, we go off to Hanegi Park to check out the Setagaya Ume (Plum Blossom) Festival.  The park has a website to let you know how many trees are blooming.  It's in Japanese, but with some help from Google Translate I'm able to figure it out.  It's at the beginning of the blooming season and the festival lasts for several weeks, but with the beautiful weather we decide to go now.  

Yum, yum!

There are supposed to be outdoor green tea ceremonies, but I didn't see them taking place (Google translate isn't perfect).  However, we have no problem finding the food booths and they have one of my favorites - grilled corn!  And it's on a stick!  Put something on a stick and it immediately tastes better.  Trust me on this.

After eating, we spend some time wandering around the plum trees and I continue to try out my new photography career. 

Going for a Japanese aesthetic

Can you count all the blooms?

 We also had to see how many selfies we could take...

Surrounded by plum blossoms

Wait - is that a tree growing out of Steve's head?

Picnic in the park!  You don't even have to bring your own food & drink.

Then we got to preview the "blue tarp" experience - apparently this happens frequently once the cherry blossoms bloom (and it's not the same "blue tarp" experience as in Louisiana after a hurricane comes through).  People have blossom viewing parties, sitting on blue tarps and having a picnic and contemplating life...or something like that.  I think it sounds like tailgating without the game and with a better view.  I'm shopping for my own blue tarp! 

Does this belong in the slideshow, "Why dogs/cats bite humans?"

Once again I see how pets are pampered in Tokyo.  From the back you might think these are two baby strollers....however, the experienced Tokyoite knows better.  Yes, that's a cat in the right, wearing a (fake) fur collar coat.  In case you missed it, the fur collar matches the cat's coloring.  The dogs aren't quite as lucky, since they are stuck wearing pink (and probably sharing a stroller - something tells me the cat is king in this domain). About half the "baby" strollers you see in Tokyo actually have pets in them.  It confuses my dogs - they can smell the animals, but they can't figure out where they are!