Cherry Blossoms

So it was quite a good week for taking pictures of flowers, cherry blossoms abound!

Unfortunately the cherry blossoms don't last particularly long, so I've only got a couple of pictures.  I took absolutely tons of them, but I didn't get any that were particularly interesting.  These two are decent enough to have a quick look at, in case you've forgotten what they look like since last year.

I went to shinjuku park which has hundreds of trees with dozens of varieties, so the colours were different from tree to tree.  Interestingly enough they were all shades of pink.  I wonder if it's simply impossible to breed them into different colours, or whether the idea of cherry blossom colour is so important to Japanese people that they refuse to try to make something a little more interesting.

There are, however, a million shades from white to bright pink.  This is one of the pinkest varieties I could find.  The centre mass is darker because of the shade, but you can see how delicate the petals actually are when the light shines through them, as in the edge petals.

The video is a better representation of the general blossomness in Japan as of last week, check it out!

A Park and A Wheel

So last month (during the cherry blossom season) I went to a park with the camera in order to capture one or two of the trees in bloom.

I completely forgot about the picture until yesterday, when I had a day off and ventured into another park without the trees.

Some of these are from before - some from yesterday.  It's up to you to choose which are from which.

It wouldn't be a set of pictures from me without a black and white one.  This shows the texture of this rock pretty nicely I think.  Uninteresting for all but me, but this is my blog so tough.

Kasai Rinkai Koen has a lot of poppies blooming at the moment.  I don't know why; they certainly weren't there last year.

Maybe it changes yearly.

This is another shot of the same set of fields.

The ferris wheel will make a comeback later in the post.

This outcropping looked pretty nice with the reflection so I just took a quick snap.  It turned out to be one of my favourites.

This is a heron from a month or so ago.  He didn't seem to be too perturbed by the people passing by, we even saw him catching a couple of fish.

Bear in mind my lens is only a very mild zoom.

This blossom is pretty indicative of the millions of other cherry blossoms around Japan.  Once you've seen one of them, you've pretty much seen them all.

Having said that, when they're dropping they do look pretty incredible.

See?  This is a slightly lighter version of the one above.

I think this is a heron.  I've no idea what type.  It might not even be a heron, I don't know.  This one was slightly more shy, and the camera struggled with the whites so there's not much detail in the feathers.  Having said that, it's amazing how close you can get if you just go slowly.

And this is the next vision of the ferris wheel replete with bad elevator music.

Link Here!

And that's all for today.

University and Studying

So I've been accepted into Aston universities correspondence teaching course.  And I finally found the correct apostrophe on this keyboard.  ' look much nicer than `.  I don't even know what that second one is.

Due to my initial interest in this course beginning when I was in Korea, half of my address information was Korean (as I didn't know where I would be in Japan, I was advised to simply put down my (then) current Korean information) and the other half was Japanese.  As such, the university queried my personal information, and this pushed me over the April deadline for admissions.  This means I'll be enrolling in the October intake.

In the meantime, I have a mahoosive reading list, a dozen titles provided by them, and dozens more recommended to me by others.

I also need to send in a certified copy of my passport page.  In the spiel given to me by the university, it states that I need a professional to certify it, which can be any one of: a doctor, lawyer, civil servant, police officer or worker of the state.  It also means a teacher can provide this certification.  Does that mean I can sign it myself and send it back to them?  Either way, I'm surrounded by teachers, and I have three possible head teachers to choose from, should they be willing to verify my documents.  I'm going to try and convince one of them to write a little message in Japanese, to see if anyone at Aston understands.

In footwear related news, I have received a new pair of shoes, curtesy of my father.  They're the brightest, most vulgar things you have ever seen.  They're running shoes, with tons of give and flex, and they weigh nothing.  Needless to say, they're bitchin'.

I am reminded of visiting america a number of years ago and purchasing a pair of bright yellow Saucony running shoes.  They didn't leave my feet until I'd outgrown them, and this bright orange pair being of the same make and comfort, I expect the same will be true here.

If you ever come to Japan, make sure you bring two pairs of shoes with you.  One pair will act as your outdoor shoes, and the other will act as all-purpose, indoor footwear.  I use the bright orange ones indoors and for exercise, as they provide the most protection from constant pounding on treadmills and whatnot.

If you're interested, these are the shoes in question.  I can vouch for their initial awesomeness, but not for their longevity or wear.  Only time will tell, as they say.

That's all there is to it, at the moment.  The cherry blossoms have almost all fallen, which means something I'm sure.