Japan is well-known for its Sakura blossom viewing, but before that season starts off you can see another type of tree in bloom: plum trees. Every year you can see them at many locations, but today we went to an area near Ome called Hinatawada. They have not a few but an enormous amount of plum trees in that area; in total nearing 25.000. A perfect place to watch some flowers!

As we had just received the 'dog-carry-backpack' that we had in Holland, we decided to test it out and take Tora with us. At first he was a bit scared of it, but after a while he got used to it. With this back pack we can literally carry Tora on our back when we are riding the train, instead of him hanging on our shoulders in the current carry-bag. The back pack made it much easier to carry those seven kilos.

We picked this day to do the hanami (flower viewing) because today the Ume Matsuri (Plum Festival) was held as well. We had to cross a bridge, which is funnily enough crossing the same river that Dennis has to cross to work everytime. In the main street there were a lot of the food stalls selling the usual matsuri dishes: yakisoba, baby-castella, glazed fruit, sweet potatoes, takoyaki, etc., etc. It wasn't only food though, since there were a lot of podiums where a group of people made traditional Japanese music with flutes, drums and other instruments, while a 'figure' was dancing on the rhythm. Each figure was different like a dragon, demon or masked monk. Very nice to see!

We continued along the route to get to the Ume no Koen (Plum tree park). This huge and hilly park has many plum trees in many different colours. Since all of them were in bloom it gave a beautiful scenery. Since it is quite far from Tokyo (over an hour) both the festival and the park were quiet enough to be enjoyable. If you do Hanami during Sakura season in Tokyo, it is so crowded that it's impossible to actually enjoy the view, especially with everyone sitting down everywhere, eating and drinking on their large blue sheets. Here it was the complete opposite. No-one was sitting down between the trees and sat only on the designated benches. You could take pictures of the trees and blossom, regularly even without any other people on them. We took a leisurely stroll in the park, taking our time and making pictures at an easy pace.

During the train ride, the walk down the matsuri street and in the park it was very clear who got all the attention, since many heads were turned because of Tora. Often we saw couples were one tells the other in a hushed voice about the cute dog after which they both stare a while at Tora. Some dared more and petted him. We are already used to being asked what kind of dog Tora is, but today we were asked at least 40 times, occasionally even in English. Although Tora was bored during the long train rides (and thus getting a bit difficult to handle), he sure loved the long walk in the park and fell happily asleep when we were back home again.