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Osaka castle Ume Sakura 2011 – The Beginning

  • February 27, 2011 2:05 pm

All the photos are from the last Sunday – 20th of February. In general this year the ume sakura comes a little bit later than usual. Previous years at that the time the ume trees were in full blossom but as you will see from the photos bellow this year they just started to flower (some varieties actually still didn’t have a single flower).

The Osaka castle ume garden has 880 trees. It is only 4 stations away with the loop line from Umeda station (the main railway station in Osaka). You must get out at Osakajokoen station. After that you have around 20 minutes walk through the castle park to reach the ume garden (there are many maps on the way so you will not get lost).

Judging by what we saw last weekend the full blossom this year will happen most probably during the first week of March (but considering the many different varieties present in the garden it is really difficult to predict).

Here is a view of part of the garden from above:

There were crowds but it was not overcrowded as sometime happens with such events:

And here are the photos from the ume trees themselves:

 

 

There was and ume trees market. You could actually buy the trees on the photos bellow. They were selling and many ume bonsai trees (I will make a separate post for them).

The Osaka castle itself in background:

I hope we can make it next week again to the castle so I can take photos from the full blossom :)

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Osaka Sakura – The Full Blossom

  • April 5, 2010 2:11 pm

As promised we revisited Sakuranomiya one week later.

The blossom was full or almost full (on some places you can see partially blooming trees).

We started again from Sakuranomiya station and went all the way to Tenma-bashi bridge (the distance is at least several kilometers). The cherry trees were continuing even further but we had to go back home.

Here is selection of some of the best photos.

I would like to start with one from the area around Kawasaki bridge (this is a small pedestrian bridge just before the big Tenma-bashi).  I think you get a good idea for the sakura roof under which we were walking:

Just two more photos with the white sakura roof above our heads:

On the last photo to the right you can see some of the colorful kiosks which are everywhere. They sell usually bear and all kinds of yakiniku (grilled meat). Most often – yakitori (grilled chiken), buta (pig) and ika (squid). Be careful with the prices though. A small can of bear will cost you usually two or three times more if you buy it from these kiosks (500 yen) than in a ordinary shop. Speaking for the devil… here is a picture of yakiniku (most probably yakitori):

Now back to sakura.

A very beautiful “pinku” sakura tree next to OPA Towers (the bamboo structure is here just to help model it in the desired form):

Okawa river:

Kawasaki bridge (if you look carefully you can see the Osaka castle to the right but even if you can not see it – do not worry – a zoomed version of it is incoming :))

Here comes and the Osaka castle (I think you can easily go all the way to it starting from Sakuranomiya station if you have around 1-2 spare hours). By the way – medieval castle, sakura trees and railways bridges – it definitely must be Japan:

The dawn was coming over Tenma-bashi area.

It is interesting that the darker was getting the more people were coming especially around the drinking/eating kiosks.

The last photos are from Tenma-bashi bridge area by night. This is the furthest point we reached even though the sakura trees were continuing alongside the Okawa river for much further:


Last but not least the Sakuranomiya bridge (apparently violet is one of the main fashion colors in Japan this year):

As I mentioned the blossom of the trees was almost full. Actually in some areas (apparently the more shadowy one) the trees were in rather early stages of blossoming. So I think that there is at least one more week of sakura in front of us (or at least in Kansai area).

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