Sakura season from prelude to finale

"Sakura" (cherry blossoms) were blooming in the bright sunshine and birds were singing
one day of mid-March.
When air is still chilly and wind is piercingly cold
 some early-blooming varieties of sakura bloom.
Prior to the arrival of spring, they enhance people's expectation for the warmth
and the full arrival of spring.

 Kawazu zakura

Kawazu-zakura is one of the earliest flowering sakura. 

The variety was originally cultivated at the Kawazu town in Izu Peninsula.

 Large numbers of them bloom during the Cherry Blossom Festival in Kawazu

 which is held annually from late February to early March. 

The tree is getting popular in other parts of Japan.

Karami zakura, or Cerasus pseudo-cerasus, native to China, also bloom early.

On the 28th of March, the first bloom of Somei-yoshino which is the most widely planted in Japan
 was declared by the local meteorological agency.
The beginning of sakura-viewing season!

Spring has come to Nara Park!

Sansha-ike, Kasugano-enchi

 Somei-yoshino

Kasugano-enchi

Mountain-cherry trees show flowers and leaves  at the same time 

Multiple-petaled Beni-yutaka

The Japanese Garden of Nara Kasugano International Forum Iraka

The branches of multi-petaled Beni-shidare are heavy with flowers and buds.

Wish the newly-weds their well-being through the veil of Yae-beni-shidare branches. 

Spring has come to my nice and quiet residential town, too!

The boy Y at the Sakura Park in my neighborhood

 Sakura is always there during the spring break of schools.
The girl Y who turned 6 on the 1^st of April walked proudly to the entrance ceremony 
of the elementary school with her brand-new brownish-wine colored "randosel".

Another Sakura Park in Y's neighborhood

In two weeks when the flowers whisper "We have to go,"

the curtain starts falling with confetti.
Thank you, Sakura, for enchanting and inspiring us.
See you next year!

Japanese sweets suggestive of sakura for refreshment
with the aftertaste of content and happiness of sakura  season.

Red bean paste is wrapped in “gyuhi” (a kind of rice cake) and then in a baked flour dough.

Crystal sugar candies.

Linked to Mosaic Monday
Our World Tuesday