Cherry Blossoms...and more!

Cherry blossom season did not disappoint.  It was spectacular!  I had no idea so many of our trees around here were cherry trees!  The whole path lining the entrance to the base is full of these trees and the combination of static displays of airplanes, a statue of Macarthur, and these soft pink trees and blossoms blowing around like snow was surreal. 

My adventure with my English students was wonderful.  They plant early blooming cherry trees, they bloom a slightly darker pink, and have over 1000 gathered on a hillside.  At the bottom of the trees they plant yellow rapeseed flowers. 

The blue sky, pink blossom, and yellow flower contrast is stunning.  The rapeseed flower is where we get canola oil by the way and for obvious reasons they changed the name for marketing purposes!!  This plant is called nanohanna in Japanese and is delicious to eat just before it flowers.  You par boil it for three minutes, chop it up and toss it with soy sauce and spicy mustard.  Yum.  During this time everything is decorated in cherry blossoms, all drinks come in cherry blossom flavor (not like our cherry taste from home) and I even found a pale pink wine with blossoms at the bottom that was delicious!

  

 My friend Drew asked me a tough question, did I like cherry blossom season best or seeing snow monkeys?  I actually think about this more often then I should because they have been the most stunning and surprising experiences I have had here so far.  I think today the answer is snow monkeys.  I have not done the cherry blossoms in DC and I’ll bet it is similar in terms of its beauty.  The difference here is that you will be driving to an event, turn the corner and all of a sudden hundreds of cherry trees line the road and everything is covered in petals. 

     It is the unexpected blocks of trees surrounding a soccer field that we discovered while out with friends for lunch.  Willow stopped the car and the three of us set out to do what had to be done….stop and walk among those beauties.  I say snow monkey, but I sure talk about those trees a lot! Ohanamiga tanoshimi desu! That means I am looking forward to cherry blossom season and I am!

We are being weaned with beautiful dogwood trees and late blooming cherry trees and azaleas everywhere.  The wisteria is about to show its self and it is spring!  We have had some hot days and cold days.  Feels like Virginia weather: Confused. 

Life is busy with parties and other fun events.  We are cramming in some time with couples since the air wing pulls out in June, taking most of the men on this base with them!  Not just men...we have lots of cool chicks flying navy aircraft these days too!  The base population drops off so much that businesses have different hours when the air wing is in town and when it is out.  The most recent party was a Great Gatsby themed event that DCAG hosted.  He does nothing half way and it was spectacular!  He wore a white tux jacket with black pants and had a bartender mixing up mint juleps and martinis.  In other words, he tried to kill us all.

Ryan arrives May 2 and lands at 11:00 pm.  We will be getting him up and out the door to see a live samurai show at Odwara Castle bright and early at 7:30 the next morning!  We have more plans than we can accomplish!  Baseball, amusement parks, crazy dinners at themed restaurants, sumo wrestling and of course flopping around with the dogs just to name a few!  He heads to Virginia Beach on the 22nd of the month and will start working full time at the beginning of June.  He's only here for less than three weeks, so we are going to make the most of it!

I will close with one more shot of the cherry blossoms...as you can see ALL of us enjoyed them!