Cherry blossom sneak attack

Asymmetrical sakura warfare at Aoyama Cemetery

The steady march of the sakura front this year was more of an overnight ambush. A few warm days brought the blossoms out a week and a half earlier than predicted. There's usually a lot of close watching of the buds, but this year it seems like they exploded all at once on Spring Equinox Day. Hanami parties that have been long scheduled for the second week of April now are more likely to take place on a carpet of mashed up flowers and under leaf buds. This weekend is the perfect hanami weather: it looks warm enough to enjoy some drinks and snacks in the park, but it's probably actually kind of freezing once you're sitting on a plastic sheet on the ground. Just the way people seem to like it. One of my favorite hanami parties was the one that ended up with 20 people relocated to our living room when it started raining. If you insist on mi-ing the hana outside with the crowds, though, this free iSakura app I wrote about three years ago* is still pretty cool for finding a good spot. Just watch your shoes. At the end of one long hanami party, mine were gone.

*I'm rereading that last paragraph, and I have no idea why we shoehorned in those unrelated apps. What was that about?!