hanami at koganei park

The past 3 weeks have been officially sakura season. The best time to visit parks, enjoy the sun and frolic in the grass.


I'm amazed that even though Tokyo is so densely populated, there are so many public parks available for recreation. Most of these parks are walking distance or at most 30 minutes away by train from most residential areas. Best of all, they are well-maintained, offer working public conveniences and offer a respite from the madness of the metropolitan.


Compare that to Kuala Lumpur, what do we have? I guess our tropical weather and itchy grass are not too conducive for walks in the park, much less to roll around in.


I can't believe it myself that I have been out so much during the last week, but the weather's just too beautiful to stay indoors. With that, we went off for what was to be our last hanami together.

Date : 9 April 2009
Time : 12 noon~
Daytime temperature : 20-30 degrees Celcius
Location : Koganei Park


Being the 2nd largest park in Tokyo after the Kasai Rinkai Park, Koganei boasts of spacious parkland, quite alike that of a secondary forest especially since it is located further out from the metropolitan.




It seems to be a favourite with young families from the surrounding suburban residential area due to facilities such as parking space, barbeque field, gymnasium and even the educational Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum.


Even though we've "seen it all", it was still lovely walking under canopies of sakura trees. It's not everyday that you look up to see blotches of pale pinkish flowers instead of the usual green leaves. Some of these trees are so full of cherry blossoms that at any moment they could just fall off when blown by the wind.


This time, I got to play with my friends' D60 and D90, and as everyone was in the mood to romp around, we came up with the following shots.










We did so much jumping, stretching, and bending that at the end of the day, we were all so exhausted. Needless to say, most of us woke up with aching muscles the next day.


Even though that marked the end of my hanami escapades, it was all worth it.