Albuquerque is at it's most beautiful in the spring. For a few months the brown turns green, and the flowering trees are in bloom. With the ever-present blue sky and the red of the mountains, springtime in Albuquerque is a more colorful place.
As a child living in Japan, I remember a similar transformation in the spring. Kobe was covered in concrete, yet most streets and rivers are lined with sakura trees. Most of the year they offer a bit of shade, but when the sakura bloom, they transform Kobe into a fairyland of fluttering pink petals and a faint sweet scent. The Japanese seize this magical moment with a tradition of picnicking beneath the cherry blossom trees to gaze at the delicate pink flowers. This is called "Hana-mi"... literally looking at the flowers. For the week or so of the cherry blossoms bloom the river is lined with picnicking, sake drinking, karaoke singing groups, enjoying the spring. My family has many wonderful memories of hana-mi parties, and nostalgia always sets in when I see a flowering tree.
I decided it was time to have our own hana-mi by visiting the Japanese Garden in Albuquerque's Botanical Garden. There even was a cherry blossom tree that was, if not quite thriving in the New Mexico weather, blooming. There were plum and peach trees in bloom, though, and it was a beautiful afternoon.
I packed Americanized obento (filled with pasta instead of rice... If I had planned ahead I would have made onigiri, but it was what we had...) and we sat and admired the flowering trees, and the koi swimming in the pond.
Thanks to Elijah's care of his sister, she did not fall in.
Elijah used his spoon to dig in the dirt soon after. The boy loves to dig!
