Here come the cherry blossoms, a full week later than the last few years.  This year 2012, April 17 to 29 should be beautiful. These photographs were made yesterday, April 15th, 2012. This weekend they should all be in bloom. Zen Hostel is in southern Nikko and at 300m above sea level and in the [...]

Last year there was this stubborn cherry tree that hadn’t blossomed until May 3rd. The middle of April is when most cherry trees are in full bloom. 2011 : April 17 2010 : April 20   The road that the above photograph is from is lined with cherry trees for 2 kilometers, called “Cherry Tree [...]

This countryside village in Nikko started to cut down the very old cherry trees. I’d say that 4 out of 7 were cut. New cherry trees will be planted along the 2 kilometer “cherry tree lane” on March 18. 1st news on the cutting/planting

This weekend is the final weekend of the Yumoto Onsen 2012 candle event, complete with fireworks at sunset. The fireworks will be on Saturday, February 25. (with a rain date of Sunday) *This post will be edited after the event with photographs of the final day* On the map  

UPDATE : the cherry blossoms are late… here they come >   The village of Okorogawa, Nikko Japan visited to say that in 2 days (February 24th), they are cutting down all of the old cherry trees along the road that Zen Hostel is on. It’s a famous road for cherry blossoms with a large [...]

I asked the shop owner across the street if I could make a photograph of JR Nikko station from his roof and he let me climb up to get a good shot. I bought a nice coffee mug on the way out; it has the 3 wise monkeys on it. http://zenhostel.jp/map-of-nikko-japan/jr-nikko-station.html      

On Tuesday, April 17 2012 at 10:30am, the Yayoi Festival is performing closing day ceremonies at Futarasan Shrine in the Unesco World Heritage area. Here is a map to Futarasan Shrine here. http://www.futarasan.jp/ http://www.nikko-jp.org/yayoisai/ and their .pdf flyer they made is here. *Update with photographs from 2012*

On the Solar calendar / Chinese calendar, Daikan  大寒 is the season of the coldest cold from Jan 20 to February 3.  From Feb 4, the season changes to risshun, or welcomingly called, “Start of Spring”.  As you can see from the chart, the temperature is rising.  Here is a weatherspark link of the mashup [...]

A 25 drive from the main animal rescue center in Tamura is a newer center catering more to cats. There are dozens of rooms and hundreds of cats waiting for a host family.  All the cats are looking for volunteers to come and pet them and take care of them. See also :  Nyander Animal Guard [...]

We drove to the Nyander Animal Guard in Tamura, Fukushima to drop off Dirk’s son who’s spending a week while school is out to volunteer.  They need volunteers to take care of the cats and dogs and to build cages and paint rooms.  If you can send them animal food like bones and biscuits and “nutritional” [...]