Yearly Traditions

It was a good weekend despite the fact that the sailing trip I was going to go on was cancelled because everyone went mountain biking instead. I was left out because my bike is a piece of crap. The wheel I found in the garbage to fix it up after my crash a while ago is crapped out, and I can barely ride it to the video store now.

I tried to work on my to-do list Saturday, and got everything done except the camera battries and the bottle of gin. This morning I headed out to get my yearly Cherry blossom shots, and at one point almost hopped on the train to go to Shinjuku to check out new mountain bikes, and further contemplate a new camera (I definatly need one regardless of the battries because although it takes great close-up shots of chickens, anything beyond 10 feet is crap). I was on the train when I saw an advertisement with a waterpainting of the cherry blossoms, and realized how stupid I was to waste on of two days a week where I can be outside in the daylight hours by going into the hellish city of Tokyo... it's far better to sneak out of work early some evening and do that. I hopped off, and headed home to sit in my chair by my window, listen to great music and paint and sketch.

Today is a photo-centric day for the Bastish-net. Actually, the photos are from as far back as two years ago, but developing digital photos is such a pain that it sometimes takes that long... I guess you can imagine what I did when I had a regular camara. In fact, I still have a couple rolls of undeveopled film in my drawer from four years ago.

Today is the start of Hanami on this side of Tokyo. The blossoms are just beginning to come out. This is also one of two times a year that the river outside my apartment looks so great, so I have almost the same picture from each year.
(Two years ago it was snowing of course, so the photos are a little different.)

Two years ago: