Many people, both japanese and gaijin, had hanami yesterday at Ueno park under sakura trees. For most of them it meant drinking beer or sake :). For me it meant taking many pictures :).

I looked forward seeing lots of sakura in Kamakura, but it was too early yesterday (wednesday). I had a very nice day there anyway, because there was lot of flowers. Kamakura is one of my favourite places in Japan so far :).

Here is Hibya park on tuesday...

I visited two places on tuesday for sakura... This is Kokyo (Imperial Garden).

I was not dissapointed :):). More pictures soon....

On Monday I visited Shinjuku Gyoen for sakura :).

At the moment biggest news in Japan is earthquake, jishin (地震) in Ishikawa. At the moment 1 people has dies and 40 has been injured. It seem earthquakes are continuing there. Some people are under their collapsed houses and some people are trapped in elevators. I noticed MTV3 has earthquake news in Finland also. In Japan there was now news in for example AOL yet... News in Finland said that earthquake was noticed in Tokyo, but we did not notice anything. We have spend this sunday morning watching our favourite DVD: Onmyoji. I do hope we would not have earthquake here... News about earthquake continue in TV... There is no electricity, trains do not run in Ishikawa...

I think sakura is news every morning in these days. Scientist are trying to predict when sakura appears. Today I saw one sakura tree in Takao on the TV. Yesterday Miki found this information about sakura yesterday: Asakusa, Ueno, Shinjuku and Harajuku - 22/3, Samukawa and Yokohama - 23/3, Kamakura 26/3, Takasaki - 29/3, Hitachi - 31/3, Takao 5/4 and Aizu 12/4. Almost every morning some company or politician says "gomenasai" on TV, because they have made mistake or done something wrong. Recently there was a mistake in sakura predictions... And there was a group of men saying "gomenasai".

Fuji-san is very important to Japanese people. There are many high places in Tokyo area where you can see Mt.Fuji on a clear weather. I have visited some high places already. For example Bunkyo Civic Center, Tokyo Tower, Chiba Port Tower, SunShine City and World Trade Center. I climbed on Takao-san on monday 12th of March. It was a long walk, but the view was worth it :). As you can see, Fuji-san was very beautiful. I needed almost hours from home to the nearest station. I took Chuo-line from Tokyo station to Shinjuku and there I took Keio Takao line to Takaosan-Guchi station. I got express train so it took only 50 minutes from Shinjuku to Takaosan-Guchi. Then I took a cable car and walked then about 1,5 hours. There were no English signs and no maps... At one point I was not sure what path to take... So I asked directions from Japanese man who was taking pictures of flowers. He was also going there. He could speak some words of English and I could understand some words of Japanese so we could talk. On my way back I took the first train I could... It was local train and it took 1,5 hours to get back to Shinjuku station... Miki and dinner were waiting for me at home :).
Pictures from Takao-san...

Wednesday, 14th of March was last sunny day on this week so far. I visited Shinjuku Gyoen again. Almost all Ume has already dissappeared, but there was still some left. As you can see it was very sunny day :). I happened to meet a finnish couple there. They told flights from Finland to Japan are now very cheap. Skype has made my contacts to Finland easy. I could get a call from my old friend Janne to my japanese keitai there.
Pictures from Shinjuku Gyoen...

It is still season of Ume blossom. I visited Koishikawa Botancal Gardens just for that reason. It is one of my favourite gardens in every season in Tokyo. It did not fail me this time either. I could see more than just Ume blossom... this bird worked hard to find some food :).
More pictures from Koishikawa Botanical gardens...

We saw less than half of Tokyo Disney sea on one day... We would visit there once more during spring. Only shortcoming we could find was food... In most restaurants in Japan we have visited dishes are at least good... but when there is no other choice, restauants in Tokyo Disney sea are also good ;). Anyway we had a wonderful and funny day there :). Their homepage...
More pictures from Tokyo Disney Sea...

Shows outside were equally impressive... They used water and fire beautifully. They did not forget dancing and music that is familiar from Disneyland parades... But you needed binoculars or camera with long zoom-lens to see it... It was okay for me :).

On Sunday, March 4th, we visited Tokyo Disney Sea for the first time together. I think it is even more impressive than Tokyo Disneyland... It was a sunny say and there was lot of people. On picture you can see one show. We had to see it two times, because we liked it very much :).