This April, I was lucky enough to catch the ephemeral Japanese cherry trees in their full spring regalia. The previous year, I circumvented their arrival in Japan by heading on a vacation to the south of the country at exactly the wrong time to catch them.
So I was quite pleased to find myself in a static position in the north of Japan this year and I could let the fleeting flowers come to me and I could see for myself why the Japanese loved these tiny, pink flowers so much. The sakura really are spectacular, though they seem to have special significance to the Japanese and for them, each tree almost seems imbued with divinity.
I have just now uploaded a gallery of photos of cherry blossoms and their arrival in Ichinoseki, Iwate, Japan.