Plum Blossom Viewing

If you know one thing about Japan, you know this country has a lot of robots, some of which can do silly fan dances. But if you know two things about Japan, you know this country has a lot of robots and a mysterious Spring pastime known as Cherry Blossom viewing.

The annual blooming of the cherry blossoms is still a month and a half away, give or take. However, plum blossoms are just attaining their full glory in gardens across Western Japan. So I decided to wonder down to the famous Shukkei-en gardens in downtown Hiroshima to do some serious, hardcore viewing.

This is what I saw.

Beautiful!  Darker and starker in hue than cherry blossoms -- they felt very wintry.

It's quite striking to see these delicate blooms on otherwise barren branches.

I love the pale purple of the blossoms against the deep, impenetrable green of the bamboo thicket behind them.  Apparently, that portly white dude liked it too!

I'm not sure why these flowers were yellow.  I heard a few faint murmurings about "Japanese apricots" -- maybe that's what these were?

Some white flowers.  More Japanese apricots?  Boy, my horticultural knowledge is worthless.

The loneliest plum blossom.  In general, because of the lack of foliage, the flowers had a lonesome feel to them.

Those who came for the viewing could take a load off and enjoy some sort of Japanese alcoholic beverage, provided they could tolerate all the foreigners who walked by and took pictures of them downing their drinks.  I decided to give the booze a try after the man in the suit assured me that it was "very sweet" and "for children."

Bottoms up!

It may look like curdled milk, but it was actually quite delicious.  Very sweet, just like the dude in the suit had said.