花見

Okay, so, sorry it's been a while guys, you know that I'm having so much fun that sometimes I don't need, want to use or think about the internet.  But I know that a lot of my friends and family maybe need to live vicariously through me so, perhaps, they need my blog to for entertainment and/or happiness.  Sorry for the delay, folks.  On Sunday, I did 花見, which reads ha-na-mi and means flower viewing, flowers referring to sakura blossoms, which are in full blast right now.  Hanami usually involves going to a place where there are cherry blossoms blooming with a bunch of friends, a tarp and some alcohol.  Since the park we went to already had tarps laid out in advance for all the flocks of people that come every day, we had more room for drinks!  We went to Kyoto, the best place in Japan (and thus the world) for this kind of activity.  We went to Maruyama Park, which is apparently pretty well-known for hanami.  The pictures are pretty self-explanatory.  
God bless Macro setting
Sunset!

These are these baskets with burning logs in them.  You can't really get that close to them but I think that they are a tradition either of this park or of hanami in general and their function is to either keep bugs away or keep humans warm.  Or both.  

This beer was smaller than my hand.  It was really cute.  I didn't buy it though, I opted for sake.

Part of the park, there was a small temple.  I know that some people try to do hanami in DC or whatever but that is pathetic.  I don't really have pictures of the size of the biggest Sakura tree in the park or the mass of people in this park, but they were both awesome in every regard.  

I also heard that this year, the flowers are especially pink due to the cold winter.