Sakura post

So becouse this is Japan and becouse this country goes crazy over sakura, meaning the cherry blossoms, I have to post about it too. And when I say crazy I really mean everything is about sakura. All the adverstisement goes sakura, Starbucks and all other cafés too have sakura coffees, sakura cakes.... And then there is sakura cookies, sakura candy, sakura ice cream, sakura everything! All the parks are full of people, under every single cherry tree there is someone holding a picnic or taking photos.

This year they said that sakura was 3 days early. It was more hot than normal and then came strong wind. So the sakura this year was over just in a week, when it usually lasts from two to three weeks. For me it was first time seeing sakura in Japan. In Finland we have a sakura park, but they are smaller trees than in here (I guess it is becouse of the climate) and of course they bloom in May, way later than sakura blooms here. It was super beutiful, but I can't say there was some spell cast over me like it seems to be for Japanese people. It was pretty, magical, but for Japanese it is the mark that summer is comming, winter is over. Maybe it is because of that, that I don't have such a feeling becouse this was the first time, that I didn't feel that way. This is already summer for me. ^^ Without anymore words, here are the pictures!

Ueno

Takadanobaba

Asakusa

Toshimaen

Ueno Zoo and Toshimaen

During spring vacation we had time to visit in many places we didn't have time to visit during school. One of them was Ueno Zoo and due to my love for amusement parks, other one was Toshimaen amusement park. Both of them had sakura festival going on during the week we visited them, so they were even more packed than usually, but we enjoyed it enyway.

We entranced Ueno Zoo pretty late, got a fast glimpse about big pandas and then continued to somewhere less growded. I got adorable photographs about lemurs and pinguines. The park closes already at 17, but for us it was enough time to see almost everything we wanted to see (they take some animals to inside about one or half an hour before closing time.)

Toshimaen amusement park is located in Nerima ward and has a reputation of being an awesome water park. In the other hand rumor says that attractions are visibly old and there is not that much to do for people who are taller than 120 cm. The less exciting rumor I can unfortunately confirm, the water section we didn't visit. We entranced with sakura festival evening ticket, paying only 1 600 yen for entrance including all the attractions, but about half of them closed already at 17:30, even though the park was open up to 20:30. The atmosphere of Toshimaen was really pretty, in the middle of sakura trees and nostalgic light effects, but the advertised evening lights were a little bit of a disappointment. It was really easy to tell that everything went with the old way: the music the light show used was western orchestra classics you don't have to pay to use anymore and lights were a mess build with every single colour you can find from a very christmass red to neon green lighted up same time or blinking in different order.

But even with that, probably becouse I love any amusement park, it was really nice. The attractions were old, paint crumbling down and most of them were old classics you can face in every single amusement park like pirate ship and troika. Also it took much more time than in any other amusement park to get on to the attractions, but not becouse of the line (though line excisted of course too). It was becouse of the fact that their most popular rollercoaster had only one set of vans and most of the attractions are handled by maximum two people (one sitting in the glass box pressing on/off, other one running around checking the safety). So for people seeking a lot for attractions I wouldn't recommend Toshimaen. Only for people just seeking for atmosphere of an very old amusement park. There is also a trouble to find food in the park, so we ended up eating crepes for hunger. ^^ But those were delicious!

Ueno Zoo

Toshimaen