Blue Lotus

Hydrangea

Hydrangea season is nearing its end, and I haven't been able to get out to see them very much this year. Luckily, as long as I keep my eyes open I can see them all over the city, in parks, people's gardens, even on my own balcony. That's the great thing about hydrangea: they are not terribly show-offy and tend to tuck themselves inconspicuously into nooks and crannies, so they just seem to sneak up on you. Hydrangea can enliven even the dreariest, shabbiest street, and spotting a few blossoms hidden here and there in the concrete jungle is a joy.

I was hoping to get more hydrangea pictures this year and was determined not to let the rain stop me. But this year it's not the rain that is stopping me, it's the cold: this rainy season seems to be extra chilly, and today I've even been debating whether or not to turn on the heat (so far I've resisted--thank goodness I haven't packed away my winter clothes yet). By the time the weather warms up the hydrangea blossoms will likely be gone, so I might as well go ahead and show you the pictures I've taken of them so far.

I'll finish with a few pictures featuring bonus spiders (bugs love hydrangea for some reason). I realize that not everybody loves bug pictures, even if the bugs in question are the cute little green sasagumo (lynx spider), so I'll give you fair warning: don't scroll down!

For more hydrangea pictures, see my flower album, and more bugs (all of them cute, I promise) can be seen in my creepy crawly album.

Balcony gardening

I've long assumed that I'm a terrible gardener, and after several failed attempts at growing herbs and flowers in the garden of my former apartment I gave up. And at my new apartment I've let two summers go by without trying to grow anything, despite having two largish (for Tokyo) balconies.

I had no plans to do anything differently this summer until I noticed something strange going on earlier this year: the poinsettia that I'd bought in early December was not only still alive, it was thriving. This was a surprise as I'd considered it a disposable plant, assuming it would die after a month they way every other plant I've ever had has. I took it as a sign that this year I'd have good gardening luck, and in March started some seeds indoors.

I started with herbs, using plastic drink bottle planters like the ones shown above. Most thrived and were transplanted outside in April and May, and with my gardening confidence considerably improved the planters are now starting cherry tomatoes, negi (long onions) and nira (garlic chives).

This is what I've planted on the balcony off of our bedroom, which faces North and gets little direct light: salad greens, parsley, and yellow cherry tomatoes. At the top right you can see a bit of the still-thriving poinsettia and a couple of hydrangea.

These are the salad greens, with mizuna on the left, arugula in the middle, and "mixed lettuce" (that's what the seed pack said) on the right. The mizuna are actually ready to be harvested as baby greens but I'm going to let them grown a bit more.

The tomatoes were bought as seedlings and seem to put all of their energy into growing ever taller rather than producing fruit. The flowers that came with the plants have since died, and new flowers have yet to turn into tomatoes. 

 

I don't know if it's the lack of sunlight, or overplanting (only after planting these three did I hear that tomatoes are happier when planted one per container) or something else, but the simple fact that they are not dead has me amazed, and I won't be too disappointed if my first tomato attempt is not successful.

There is still plenty of space for more plants on this balcony but with the lack of direct sunlight I'm not sure what to plant.

 

This balcony, on a sunny South-east corner, has herbs and more tomatoes. It gets good light and I'd love to fill it up with more plants, but this is where I hang my laundry, where my husband smokes and where we have coffee or breakfast on weekends. If only we had a third balcony...

 

Here we have basil, started from seed, and mitsuba (trefoil) which I grew from the roots attached to mitsuba I'd bought at the supermarket (the herb is usually sold that way here).

 

Here is thyme, mystery herb (I lost both the seed package and the garden marker and now can't remember what it was--oops), peppermint and rosemary, all started from seed. None of them are growing like crazy, but again I'm just happy that they're growing.

 

Below the herbs are two pots of shiso (perilla), my favourite Japanese herb. It is growing very well (I've been steadily picking the bigger leaves for the past month) which is a surprise since shiso did very poorly at my old apartment.

This is a tomato of unknown type, bought as a mature seedling already bearing small green fruit (it came with a hand-written market identifying it as "regina" or something like that, and no other information). It is doing exceptionally well, but the flavour of the fruit is a bit insipid. Perhaps the one I tried wasn't ripe enough, so I'll be a bit more patient with my next harvest.

To any experienced gardeners out there these balcony gardens are hardly impressive, but for me they are almost miraculous. I'm probably doing many things wrong, but I've already learned so much. It is now obvious why the garden at my last apartment was so unproductive: a small space tucked between houses it was dark, damp and breezeless, which meant that even the plants that could survive without direct sunlight didn't stand a chance against the bugs that thrived under the moist, still conditions.

The two balconies at my new place get enough wind to ward off most bugs (we've never had mosquitoes) and although they don't get sun all day it seems to be enough. There are only two problems I can foresee: that with me away for much of the summer I'll have to rely on Hideaki, a proven plant killer, to water them during the hottest time of year. And that the only bugs that survive on my breezy balcony, stink bugs, will decimate my crops.

So if anyone has any hints for balcony gardening, especially regarding stink bug control, watering systems and plants that do well with poor light, please pipe up!

Shinjuku Gyoen

On Saturday we celebrated the opening day of the Fukutoshin Line, a new subway line that starts at Wakoshi (our nearest station) and goes all the way to Shibuya, a journey that used to require one transfer and a ride on the unpleasant Yamanote Line. Along the way it stops in Shinjuku Sanchome, close to the department stores of eastern Shinjuku as well as Shinjuku Gyoen, my favourite park in central Tokyo.

It was not an auspicious start, with the trains running about 15 minutes late and causing similar delays on the Yurakucho line, which shares tracks with the new Fukutoshin Line. The two trains shown above didn't budge for the 20 minutes we were waiting for our train, something I've never seen. The ride itself was interesting: for the first little while it was full of grumbling, pissed-off passengers, who were just trying to get where they wanted to go. They were replaced little by little with nerds like us, excited to ride a subway on its opening day. The atmosphere was closer to a line at an amusement park than a subway ride, with people laughing, smiling, and pointing out stuff like the neat design of the chairs in the new stations or the mistakes in the announcements (the Fukutoshin trains are operated by a single driver with no conductor to help, and our driver was having trouble getting the pre-recorded announcements right).

The ride was smooth until we neared Ikebukuro, since the train was using older tracks and established stations, but when it started going along new tracks and stopping at brand-new stations things got interesting. All of the new stations have a safety barrier and automatic doors, which means that the train must be perfectly aligned when it stops. And the driver undershot at nearly every stop, causing him to have to move the train forward several centimetres with a huge jolt that felt more like a rollercoaster ride than a subway ride. But the passengers--especially the kids--seemed delighted, and I've never seen such a happy and friendly crowd on a train or subway before.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of the new trains, which are pretty cool looking. The Fukutoshin Line shares trains with the Yurakucho line, and all we saw were the regular old type. Hopefully I'll get a picture someday, but I'm not going to be riding that line again until they work out all the bugs--Hideaki reports that the delays were even worse today, with Fukutoshin trains running half an hour late and Yurakucho trains even worse, causing dangerous crowding at major stations.

So back to Shinjuku Gyoen. Shinjuku Sanchome station has exits leading directly to Takashimaya and Isetan department stores, so we passed through Isetan's depachika (basement food market) on the way to the park to grab lunch. At the park we found a nice spot beside a row of lovely hydrangeas, above, and set up our picnic.

Our lunch consisted of a warm bento, five onigiri, and a salad.

The bento was gomoku okowa (steamed sticky mochigome rice with vegetables) topped with thin strips of omelet and slices of anago no kabayaki (sweet soy sauce-grilled sea eel).

Of the onigiri, these two were the most interesting: shake no oyako (salmon mother-and-child), with flakes of salted salmon and ikura (salmon roe)...

...and nitama(egg simmered in soy sauce). This one was such a neat idea that I'm going to try it just as soon as I can find eggs small enough--or maybe I'll make mini onigiri with uzura tamago (quail eggs).

We fell into our usual routine, with Hideaki taking a nap after lunch and me heading out to take pictures. The park is huge (I've never seen all of it) so I only covered a small section, but it's always impressive no matter what part I visit. The park was originally a private garden belonging to the Imperial family and wasn't opened to the public until 1949. It is especially popular during the cherry blossom season but really has something to see in all seasons. Summer is my favourite time to visit, because of the extensive lawns and wide-open spaces, both rarities in Tokyo.

 

And of course the hydrangea were lovely. These ones were less buggy than the ones in my area, but I did find this one little baby cricket. Cute, huh?

The plane trees were impressively huge.

These air roots surrounding the cypress trees were intriguing, and after a little research it seems they are called "cypress knees", and nobody really knows what their purpose is.

This is the Kyugoryotei, also known as the Taiwan-kaku (Taiwan Pavilion), built in Chinese style in 1927 as a gift from the Japanese community in Taiwan in commemoration of Crown Prince Hirohito's wedding (Taiwan being under Japanese rule at the time).

The NTT Yoyogi Building wasn't around the first time I visited the park 12 years ago, and as I recall there were few buildings visible from inside the park. It was an odd feeling being in the middle of the city, just a short walk from the busiest train station in the world, and seeing nothing but greenery. Now, of course, this skyscraper is visible from most sections of the park, never letting you forget you're in Tokyo.

But tall buildings can be seen anywhere. Here's a view I like better:

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
03-3350-0151
11 Naito-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Open Tuesdays to Sundays (some exceptions, call to check schedule before going), 9am to 4:30pm (last entry 4:00)
Entry 200 yen for adults, 50 yen for elementary and junior high school students, children under 6 free 

Foraging in Tokyo

A few posts back I mentioned picking cherries while at a local park, and I thought I'd follow that up with some pictures from a more recent visit. (The park is actually two parks: Oizumi Chuo Koen in Tokyo and Wako Jurin Koen across the border in Saitama, so the title of this post is a bit misleading as not all of my foraging was actually within Tokyo's borders.)

This is a hebi ichigo (false strawberry), which looks like it would be delicious. The first time I found one here I assumed it would be similar to the wonderful wild strawberries we get at home, so it was a huge disappointment when I had a taste. Despite the colourful, juicy appearance, they dry and have virtually no flavour. Occasionally one will have a hint of sweetness, or a faint melony-cucumber flavour, but it's very subtle. They are fully edible, and don't actually taste bad, but would only be worth picking if you were starving. Still, I occasionally find myself popping one in my mouth, just because.

These are sakura no mi (wild cherries). They're ready when they're black and plump. Over-ripe cherries are slightly wrinkled and should be avoided: they're plenty sweet but likely to be chock full of bugs.

This is the queen of wild fruit, at least in my area: yama ichigo. Literally "mountain strawberry", these are actually a type of raspberry.

They are sweet and mild, and the seeds are lighter and softer than regular raspberries: they are pleasantly crunchy and do not get stuck in your teeth.

This is a yama ichigo flower, the centre of which will eventually turn into a berry. The plants are abundant at the park, but don't produce a lot of fruit--and what fruit they do produce is a bit hard to find, usually hidden under the leaves.

Unfortunately they prefer the same terrain as hebi ichigo produce fruit at roughly the same time. And because the berries look similar, at least from afar, they can be rather annoying to pick. Here are a few hints: up close, yama ichigo plants can be identified by the white flowers--hebi ichigo usually have smaller yellow flowers, and their flower season is long over when the berries ripen. The fruit of the yama ichigo is large and reddish orange, and usually grows off the ground, up to a height of about 40 cm, while hebi ichigo fruit is bright red, small and close to the ground.

These berries weren't very tasty.

Heehee, just kidding, but I did almost reach for one of these ladybugs. This particular tree, and this one only, was just covered with ladybugs--some brand-new and some still in the larval stage. They had an amazing variety of spot patterns and came in three different types: black with orange spots, black with white spots, and reddish-orange with black spots (the orange one at top right has just emerged and will shortly turn a bit darker). There are more varieties of ladybugs in Japan than this, but still the large variety of them on this one single tree was astonishing. I only wish I was able to get a picture with a bunch of them together, but they weren't very cooperative. So failing that this collage gives an idea of how heavily this tree was crawling with ladybugs.

This is what I came home with: a bag of sakura no mi, a bag of yama ichigo and kuwa no mi (mulberries), and a few sprigs each of ki no me (leaves of sansho, or Sichuan pepper) and yomogi (mugwort). There were a few more edible plants that I didn't pick: warabi (bracken fern), which was too mature, and tampopo (dandelion) which were too far out in the open (see warning below). And those are just the plants that I know and can identify. I wonder what other edible herbs and berries are out there?

Here's a better look. Clockwise from left: yama ichigo, sakura no mi, ki no me, hebi ichigo, kuwa no mi. I had originally planned to turn the berries into jam or liqueur but I ended up just eating them as-is. Hopefully the park will continue to produce berries for a few more weeks, and then I'll get to do something more exciting with them.

So if you live in Tokyo, don't assume that it's all a concrete jungle! Sakura no mi and kuwa no mi abound even in the city, and other edible treats may be lurking around as well. The next time you're at a park or even just walking through the streets, keep your eyes peeled. An easy way to find cherries and mulberries is by searching the ground for black splotches caused by fallen fruit: look up and you see fruit that is dark puple to black and looks like a berry, it probably is. One little bite will tell you if it's tasty or not.

* Caution: Poisonous berries are relatively rare and tend to look different from edible berries, so if you know what wild cherries, raspberries, mulberries etc. look like you'll be fine. Poisonous berries tend to be white, green or bright red and are bitter enough that you'll want to spit it out immediately. As far as I know there are no berries in Japan that can cause harm from just one taste.

A more practical warning is to steer clear of low-lying berries and herbs out in the open, especially in dog-intensive areas. I think you can guess why. Yama ichigo are safe as the stalks have thorns. And avoid berries that touch the ground, are mishapen and are discoloured as they are more likely to have extra protein, if you get my drift.

Sunday at the park

 

On Sunday evening we heard the news: tsuyu (the rainy season) had officially begun. Overnight, the weather obligingly turned cool and rainy, but Sunday itself was a lovely sunny day, perfect for spending at the park. We went to Wako Jurin Koen in Wako City, Saitama, a very nice big park just a few minutes' walk from our apartment.

As if they knew that tsuyu had started, a few hydrangea were in beautiful full bloom. The rest were holding out for the rain to begin, but were pretty in their own way.

 

 

The park was not as full of people as it usually is: a nice day like this and it's usually packed. Almost everyone headed for the brand-new playground, which seems far too small to support the kids it was swarmed with. It is completely dwarfed by the giant taikukan (gym), which is run by the city (not my city though, so as a resident of Nerima I have to pay twice as much as Wako folks). It is about a year old, and I was surprised to see how well the grass and greenery on the side of the building is doing. It's certainly in better shape than the grass on the ground. Lawns are in imported idea and it seems the Japanese still have trouble getting it right, but that's a subject for a different post.

 

 

We had a picnic lunch and then I set off to find dessert. Hideaki didn't join me as he's not much of a forager: e knows wild fruit sometimes comes with bugs. The wimp. I say a little extra protein never hurt anybody, so off I went, leaving him to nap the afternoon away.

 

These are sakura no mi (wild cherries), from the same trees that produced the sakura (cherry blossoms) I took so many pictures of earlier this spring. Hardly anyone knows they are edible, and indeed most of them are unpleasantly bitter, but a few trees produce good sweet-tart fruit.

 

 

It seems I'm not the only one who likes the cherries. These little bundles of pits and skins litter the ground around the sakura trees, and I'm not sure what they are. The park's bird population explodes this time of years, with crows especially numerous, so I'm guessing these are regurgitated pellets from the crows. Or maybe (very clean) droppings from the tanuki (raccoon dogs) that are said to live in the park. Can anyone help identify it?

 

Another interesting discovery, this one not needing to be identified: the giant beak gives it away as a crow skull. Perhaps a bit gloomy to include in this post, but I hope you'll think of it as I did: a reminder that life is short and should be enjoyed while it lasts. And that's exactly why we head to the park on sunny Sundays: life is too short not to take time to nap on the grass and smell the flowers.

Spring flower round-up

Spring didn't end when the cherry blossoms dropped, and I have a few month's worth of flower pictures to show you. Names can be confusing, since they vary from place to place, so I'll try to include the Japanese, scientific and common English names for each flower. But there are a few whose names I don't know, so if anyone can help identify them please speak up.

椿 (tsubaki)
Camellia japonica
Camellia (variety unkown)

The tsubaki is actually considered a winter flower but keeps blooming through to April. The flower above, of unknown variety, was actually one of the last blooms in my area, and had faded considerably from its original red colour.

乙女椿 (otome tsubaki)
Camellia japonica var. rusticana (Honda) T.L. Ming
Camellia (common name unknown)

This one really was pink, and I wish I knew the variety name in English as it's one of the most elegent flowers in the world.

大犬の陰嚢 (oh-inu no fuguri)
Veronica persica
Persian speedwell

These tiny flowers abound in March and April, but can be easily overlooked due to their size and low stature. A shame, because they are very cute.

The Japanese name is rather mysterious, and I urge caution to anyone thinking of searching for the meaning online. I just googled the kanji for "fuguri" and Wikipedia Japan let me know, in a most graphic way, that it means "testicles". So this flower seems to be called "big dog's testicles"--does anyone know why? Because I've seen quite a few dog testicles in my day, belonging to all sizes of dogs, and none of them looked like this.

I'm guessing this little April flower is some kind of sweet pea. Anyone know the proper name?

Another tiny mystery flower, out from March to May.

蒲公英 (tampopo)
Taraxacum officinale
Common dandelion

I made a wish after I took this picture, but I'm not telling you what for.

大紫躑躅 (oh-murasaki tsutsuji)
Rhododendron pulchrum
Lovely azalea

Lovely indeed, these azaleas are ubiquitous in April, with virtually every street in Tokyo (and a good number of train stations) being lined with them. The Japanese name literally means "large purple azalea" which must mean that the language has no word for "fuchsia", because these flowers definitely aren't purple.

Another wee little easy-to-overlook wildflower, this one blooms from mid-May to... well I don't know really because they're so easy to miss that this is the first year I've noticed them.  

山吹 (yamabuki)
Kerria japonica
Kerria rose, Japanese rose

These shade-loving flowers bloom prolifically in April and are so bright and cheerful looking that they make me happy each time I pass them by. The world needs more of these flowers.

カルミア (karumia)
Kalmia latifolia
Mountain laurel

This amazing flower is one that I had never seen until I moved a few years ago; now they're all over my neighborhood and I'm glad for it. The unique blooms pop open in May and come in varying shades from white to deep pink.

These May blossoms are chestnut flowers, but I'm not sure what type. The chestnuts back home in Ontario had white flowers of a similar size and shape while edible chestnuts in Japan have completely different flowers. 

いろは紅葉 (iroha momiji)
Acer palmatum
Japanese maple

Properly called "iroha momiji", these maples are commonly called simply "mojiji", but yet again I run into Japanese name confusion: the kanji for "momiji" literally means "red leaves". It has two pronunciations: "momiji", or Japanese maple, and "kouyo", or autumn leaves. Japan's nature is certainly beautiful, but the language drives me bonkers.

The seeds are as beautiful as the leaves. There must be a special name for this type of seed--when I was a kid we used to call them "helicopters" because of the way they spun as they descended to the ground.

I used to split open the seed part, which is full of a glue-like sap, and stick it to the bridge of my nose to transform myself into a rhinoceros. It's not quite as impressive with the Japanese seeds, which I attribute to the smaller size of the seeds here and a lack of imagination on the part of my audience (although the audience in question--namely my husband--thinks it may be because my nose has grown quite a bit since my rhino days).

紫陽花 (ajisai)
Hydrangea macrophylla
Bigleaf hydrangea

My favourite flower of all is just coming into bloom now. Most buds in my neighborhood are still tight and green but a few are starting to open and turn white, with these particular blooms showing blue tips. In another month this bush will be covered in showy blue flowers--expect another gratuitous flower post in June.

 

八重桜

OK, I promise this will be the last cherry blossom related post this year. You're probably getting sick of seeing these flowers, since they all do kind of look the same. But somehow I never tire of sakura--even this year, with the extra long blooming season.

The regular somei yoshino sakura have long since dropped their petals, leaving the ground carpeted in a sea of white and pink so thick in places that it looks like we've had an April snowfall.

But when the somei yoshino are on their way out, the shidare-zakura (weeping cherry blossom) come out, and when they're done it's time for the yae-zakura (double cherry blossoms).

Shidare-zakura are lovely but there are none around here, while my neighborhood abounds in yae-zakura. I've never really liked yae-zakura, since they lack the delicate simplicity of regular cherry blossoms--in fact I've always thought that trees covered in those big puffy double cherry blossoms looked rather tacky.

But it wasn't until I moved into this neighborhood that I was able to see them close up, and I discovered that what charm the trees lack when seen from afar is more than made up for by viewing the blossoms up close. They really are quite beautiful, especially when the sun shines from behind and the many petals create layers of colour.

Now the yae-zakura are gone too, but spring is in full swing and there flowers blooming all over the place. It's so lovely around here lately that I may just have to change my favourite season from summer to spring.

Still blooming

The cherry blossom season is remarkably long this year, and although I was stuck at home with a cold while the blooms were at their peak, there were still a few left to see when I recovered. Sadly my camera is acting up, yet again: it won't focus in regular pictures, and the middle of the frame is blurry as you can see above. My lens is clean the camera continues to work fine for close-ups, so I'm not sure what's going on. I guess I'll have to send it in for more repairs. Or is it finally time to buy a new camera?

Many of the cherry trees at our local park are not regular somei yoshino (the most widely planted variety of sakura), but a fruit-bearing type that bloom a little bit later and produce tart little wild cherries in June. They have more colour than somei yoshino and also have a bit of a fragrance, but because they bloom at the same time as their leaves sprout they are a wee bit less impressive. Still, a cherry blossom is a cherry blossom, and a park full of these is plenty beautiful.

But even though the sakura are almost gone doesn't mean they can't be celebrated. This is Japan, and there's always something to buy. This sake is produced by a local merchant's association just for this season and is called "Ooizumi", which is the same name as our neighborhood but switches the kanji around-- the first character is replaced by the kanji for "sakura".

I think it is brewed elsewhere but the bottle says it's made with local underground spring water. I didn't know we even had local spring water, but I've always wondered why our neighborhood was called what it was: Ooizumigakuen means something like "university campus of the big spring", yet there are no universities here and I've never seen a spring, big or little. But I guess somewhere around here there's a spring, or a well leading to a spring. And now half of the mystery is solved.

I bought this sakura anpan at a local bakery. Anpan is a popular snack consisting of a bun filled with anko (sweet red bean paste); this sakura version is topped with a preserved cherry blossom.

Inside, instead of the regular dark red anko it stuffed with shiro-an (white bean paste) mixed with preserved cherry blossoms. The blossoms turn the shiro-an a lovely shade of pink, and add a pleasant salty floral flavour.

And of course, the traditional two-toed cherry blossom viewing socks. Actually, I think those are ume (Japanese apricot blossoms), but close enough.

So there you have it. There is not a single holiday or seasonal even that doesn't involve commercial products for sale, so if you happen to miss the cherry blossoms themselves, don't worry. There's still plenty of stuff to buy.

Sakura

On my way home from the doctor's office on Tuesday I took a slight detour and walked through the park. The sakura (cherry blossoms) were still mostly intact, despite the recent windy and rainy weather, and seeing them really cheered me up.

I probably should have hurried home, since it was a chilly day with an even chillier wind, but I dawdled a bit and took some pictures. I'll be damned if a stupid cold is going to keep me away from the blossoms.

There are several streets in the neighborhood lined on each side with large cherry trees, creating what's known in Japan as a "sakura tunnel". It really is a beautiful sight to see, but unfortunately at that time of day the traffic prevented me from taking any pictures that did the tunnels justice. I'm sure by the time I'm well enough to make it out again all the trees will have dropped their petals, so for this year these pictures will have to do. Luckily Tokyo's flower parade doesn't end with sakura, so there are plenty of blossoms on their way and I don't intend to miss them.

I hope that you're staying healthy and enjoying whatever nature's spectacles are underway in your part of the world!

Spring is here

In Tokyo there's some kind of flower in bloom all year long, and that's one of the things I love about this city. Early bloomers like roubai (winter sweet) and ume (Japanese apricot) are often thought of as harbingers of spring, but to me the true herald of spring is jinchouge (sweet daphne).

As the pictures of snow-covered ume blossoms I took a few months ago attest, the early blooming spring flowers can stand cold temperatures, but the jinchouge burst open in March with a promise that the cold weather is over.

The blossoms themselves are pretty, especially up close, but what jinchouge is really celebrated for is its fragrance. My old apartment had a large jinchouge bush in the back yard and I used to leave the back windows open all day, braving the chill (the flowers may signal the end of winter but Tokyo in March is hardly balmy) in order to fill the house with the lovely sweet scent. One of the hardest things about moving was leaving that bush behind, so imagine my delight last year when the landlady planted several jinchouge bushes by our buildings entrance last year! This was in late March and the blossoms were pretty much finished, so this is the first time to enjoy a full jinchouge season here.

Jinchouge aren't the only flowers in bloom around here: the sakura (cherry blossoms) started late last week and the ground is covered in sumire (violets), hana nira (spring starflower) and other wildflowers. And these bell-shaped blossoms, called asebi (Japanese andromeda) are putting on a very showy display at the local park.

This feral rose-ringed parakeet is hardly a sign of spring, as the flock stays in Tokyo year-round, but it sure made me happy to see it. I first encountered a whole tree of these birds last month but didn't have my camera with me, so on a recent walk with my camera we made sure to pass the tree again. This time there were only four of them, which makes us wonder where the others were. Is this tree their home base or do they move around? Is this part of the same famed group that lives at the Okayama campus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, or are there different groups scattered throughout the city? I'd love to learn more about them.