Today was an extremely lovely day, so me and Kagamin went out for bit of a joyride. Midway we realized that the roadsides were all white, and it reminded me of the sakura trees in the university. Needless to say, we headed off that way.

Not much of a sight but this magnormous carpark simply fills up to the brim during the weekdays, denying lazy students of a carpark from 10 a.m. onwards. When I was studying here I realized that most of the cars were only driven by one person. Perhaps if people started car pooling...

The carpark's got a lot of trees, but none of them are very large. We'll go over to the sakuramichi next to the arts buildings where the trees are larger and heavier with flowers.

Okay, so over this Midoriiro ni Somaru Saka we'll arrive on the sakuramichi of the campus. Its amazing how green the grass is over here. The grass isn't always greener on the other side says I.

Kagami, being the little cute figma she is, couldn't take on the entire hill at once, so she stopped to rest.

There was a little stage on the side of one of the buildings, so she climbed up on it and sat there for a while. Even though she was tired as hell trying to run up the hill, she seemed to be enjoying herself a lot.

Off we go! The stage that she was sitting on is in the background.

We finally made it up to the sakuramichi. The university grounds you see here are actually pretty new. The university used to be in the middle of the city and made up of extremely old colonial style buildings. Only in the 50's did they start moving the university into a suburb, and building nice new modern buildings. In the 1960's the final courses offered in the old university were finished off and the university buildings in the city became museums and art galleries.

Cherry trees are very interesting because they bloom completely at first, but their branches are completely void of leaves. This gives them such a beautiful white and pink hue, it makes them look like trees that grow snow. This makes them very unique and very noticeable among the other red, green and orange hues of the other trees.

I love how cherry blossoms grow in bunches too. Its almost as if they all get assigned little blooming teams during the winter, and nicely arrange themselves along the branch. When the spring comes all of them jump out and open up, giving us that magnificent effect of balls of cotton strung together by wire. It sorta teaches us about how people, not just flowers can also be amazing when they bunch up and work together as a team and with other teams.

Kagami loves climbing around the trees too. Though I'm always there when she steps on snails or ladybugs and just slips off the bark.

The falling petals also show us that we're all going to fail once in a while, but all we need to do is keep working hard, and keep blooming. Because the only way to ever be part of this magnificence is to be up there blooming with everyone else!

Of course, the flowers are awesome even when taken one by one, but together, they make a completely different, yet extremely majestic scenery. What better example of beauty on the micro and macro scale?

I'm starting to get all poetic and stuff...

桜たちよ咲かそう
この鼠色だらけの世を
明るくてともそう
眩しい笑顔をかなえてこう

not that that's much of a poem...

The way the flowers are scattered on the roadside makes me feel like its been done on purpose. Maybe the janitors make sure that they sweep the petals to the side of the street to give it that white border effect.

"This is Hiiragi Kagami reporting from the modern languages block. Here we can still see petals falling heavily in the air, almost as if there's snow right now. The only difference is, its kinda warm with slightly chilly air. This sight is not going to last long. We haven't seen hints of leaves on the trees yet but they are all already in full bloom. So if you live in Christchurch, go and see the trees before its too late."

This is the end of the short sakuramichi. Most of the trees are concentrated here. Though not enough to make the entire hill white but nevertheless still a sight to behold. It also makes for some very nice tree cover shots.

Cherry blossoms sometimes grow halway along the branch or even in the middle of the trunk. Its so random but heck, people are random too. Here's Kagamin cuddling around in a nice bunch along the tree.

There were lots of birds jumping around in the trees too. Can you spot them?

You can go through the gallery too where I've uploaded the rest of the photos. There you can try and find the birds in the trees. I tried shooting them but I'm not sure if I captured them. If you do notice any birds please let me know!

Here's Kagami standing on the walk covered by the trees. When you look up, you see this:

There were lots of people running around taking photos with us too, so we decided to just sit around, soak up the sun and enjoy the view. The whiteness and sheery cover of the trees are just so relaxing to look at. Whenever the wind blows, it feels as though they are waving at you and whistling the words: "Konnichiwa"

Somehow Kagamin seems so at home with all these flowers surrounding her. Perhaps it is because she is Japanese, this is very much like home for her. What better place to show off a Japanese girl's beauty than next to some Japanese flowers?

The branches, create wonderful outlines, like rivers along a plain, with the flowers, filtering out the light, while at the same time reflecting it in such a way that seems to make every single petal shine. Though the sun may provide the light, but the flowers have made it beautiful.

When I started musing around about how each of these flowers were so pretty themselves, but together with their comrades they manage to paint another very pretty picture, Kagamin got irritated and shot me a "HAZUKASHII SERIFU KINSHI". Though she still loves looking at the flowers anyway. She's cute when she's not talking too much.

The biggest problem me and Kagamin were facing when trying to get close to the trees were bees. The bees are very active today, trying to get as much honey back as possible to Her Majesty, so we tended to get in their way when we rested against the trees and shook the branches.

But since they weren't in the mood to sting anyone I guess you could call us lucky.

After spending a few hours there, it was starting to get chilly, so me and Kagamin headed off to grab something to eat. If you're interested, the gallery's got lots more pictures, and remember to tell me if you find birds in the trees!

written by astrobunny \\ blossom, cherry, hanami, haru, kagami, saku, sakura, short, spring, university