While walking around the city near a place where I used to live, I was pleasantly surprised to discover several cherry trees in full bloom in a parking lot just up the street. After all the years I’ve passed by this spot, this was the first time I had ever noticed them.
The plum blossoms are currently appearing all around the city, but even the earliest-blooming cherry trees I know—at Chōtoku-ji Temple (Okame-zakura) and Toyokuni Shrine (Hachitsuka-zakura)—are only just beginning to show their first buds.
But what really delighted me were the little mejiro (Japanese White-eye) darting among the blossoms!
