"Chinese Cherry Blossom

For the Chinese the cherry blossom is a very significant symbol of power. Typically it represent a feminine beauty and sexuality and often holds an idea of power or feminine dominance. Within the language of herbs and herbal lore of the Chinese the cherry blossom is often the symbol of love.

Japanese Cherry Blossom

For the Japanese the cherry blossom holds very different meaning. The cherry blossom is a very delicate flower that blooms for a very short time. For the Japanese this represents the transience of life. This concept ties in very deeply with the fundamental teachings of Buddhism that state all life is suffering and transitory. The Japanese have long held strong to the Buddhist belief of the transitory nature of life and it is very noble to not get too attached to a particular outcome or not become emotional because it will all pass in time."

I think I want a jellyfish, tokidoki, cherry blossom or something.

Drawing it on.

And then the first zap of pain. "Holy Fuck!" I said. "Oh, that's what it feels like," he jabs, as he jokingly mocked my wimpy-ness"

"I'm gonna add some green," He says.

-Photos Courtesy of Mandizzle.

Speaking of green, this weekend we took the kids to see the Incredible Hulk. And for most of Sunday the men played in the giant inflatable pool in the backyard, rocked the wii while I battled the Excel homework.

www.threadless.com/submission/171147/Alishan_flower

Et retrouvez-les dans les boutiques ZhongArt:

chez Comboutique

chez Spreadshirt

chez Cafépress

Comme au Japon, parez-vous éternellement des fleurs de cerisier, symbole de l'impermanente beauté.

Rendez-vous dans les boutiques ZhongArt:

http://zhongart.com

Ou directement dans le verger Cafépress:

http://www.cafepress.com/alishan_flowers

It was all happen due to accident. Aya accidentally hear Taisuke's new phone number. She, then, accidentally send sms telling him how much she likes him. She's panic!

But, Taisuke responds well. Aya can't believe it. They are going out together now!

My rating:

When FedEx delivered my package at work today, curiosity kicked in and naturally, everybody wanted to know what was inside.  When I pulled out 6 different bottles of foam soap from Bath & Body Works, it's safe to say that it wasn't exactly what people expected.  There were smiles all around, and a couple of good laughs echoing from my excitement over foam soap!

Short and sweet, these soaps are unbelievable.  The foam, the scent, WOW!  I'm single, which means that I don't get the beautiful scent of a woman around my apartment, in my car, on my clothes...you get the point.  Instead, I have Cherry Blossom, Sparkling Peach, Japanese Cherry Blossom, Pink Grapefruit, Warm Vanilla Sugar and Black Rasberry Vanilla anti-bacterial foaming soaps to fill the void.  Far from a woman, but it'll do the trick for now!

(My bad on the pic, taken from my iPhone)

Flor nacional do Japão

Desde a Antiguidade, os japoneses têm encontrado a beleza nas quedas das pétalas da flor de cerejeira, em vez da árvore florida. Admirando o modo como elas são delicadas em sua queda. Os japoneses admiram a vida que floresce e cai como as Sakuras.

As Sakuras também foram o símbolo do exército japonês.

No mundo da tatuagem, é comum a tatuar um tigre no meio de bambus, mas Horiyoshi-III tatuou Sakuras em todo o corpo. No tronco da árvore, tatuou os nomes de seus filhos em letras antigas.

I have been to the cherry blossom festival in Brooklyn Botanic Garden for two years. This year it turned me over. Going through the overloaded branches of trees, I could hardly breathe, and the only word coming into my mind is "overwhelming".

I still remembered the disappointment I had when I had expected such kind of overwhelming cherry blossoms in Washington, D. C. but failed to see it (too late there, April 13). Brooklyn Cherry Blossom Festival (May 3) didn't disappoint me, thank God. Another excitement it gave me was the next weekend I was there again and saw the Japanese peonies, overwhelming again.

We started tasting in Kyoto with some Sakura (cherry blossom) and matcha (green tea) hand-dipped ice cream near the Kiyomizu-dera temple. Nice, but nothing to write home about. A day later we tried another place nearby (we were staying at a bed & breakfast near that temple) and it was better. The black beans and mochi are an interesting addition. I liked it better than Bethany did. (I'm not naming these places because the names were in kanji and even Dawn couldn't tell me what it meant--sorry!)

After seeing lots and lots of soft-serve places, we finally decided we'd better try that, since that seemed to be more of a specialty. And yes, that was quite good! If you go, do try the soft-serve.  The place we tried in Uji (a short train ride from Kyoto) was particularly good. Uji is famous for its green tea, and the matcha-flavored soft-serve was excellent.

We only ran across one place that advertised gelato, the coffee shop at the top of the government building in Shinjuku (in Tokyo). Fabulous 360 degree views, but the gelato? Um, let's just say the strawberry cake was much better. Ice crystals and not a lot of chocolate flavor.

In summary, if you visit Japan, make sure to visit a kai-ten sushi place. That's where little plates of sushi travel all around the restaurant on a long conveyor belt. You sit on a stool and snag whatever strikes your fancy, then pay at the end according to the plates you've accumulated. Fun, inexpensive and very tasty!  And do try Japanese karaoke if you're with a group. Unlike American karaoke, you and your friends get a private little room and only embarrass yourselves in front of each other, instead of a room full of strangers. Tip: Nomi Houdai means "all you can drink."

And if you get to Uji, try the matcha soft-serve ice cream!

Last weekend, the street celebrated my eighth birthday. The cars came dressed in pink party dresses and the sidewalk was carpeted in cotton candy confetti.

And the old lady with three small, wiener dogs was wearing a cardboard party hat.  Or maybe that was just my imagination. 

Anywho, last week, I am at work and a certain highly eccentric bi-polar individual comes in literally throwing gifts around. While I'm helping her with her walker, I notice she is holding a LOUIS VUITTON CHERRY BLOSSOM POCHETTE.

And I exclaim, "Do you know what this is?!!!"

"Yes, I know what it is. I bought the damn thing," she barks at me. I can imagine her knowing Louis Vuitton but identifying Murakami- ah-uh. She gives the purse to my boss. I run over and grab the booklet that I got at the show to show the boss. I thought she ought to have it. She ought to know who Takashi Murakami is.

We determine, It's not a genuine LV.  Maybe it was the price tag for 34.99 that tipped us off.  However, I was secretly in love with it. And today the boss gave to me!

Eye<3 Murakami

Cherry Blossom

Check out this blog featuring Fake, gasp, Murakami LV and Britney Spears!

thepiratesdilemma.com/the-tao-of-pirates/brit...

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]]> http://mimetolith.wordpress.com/?p=17 Tue, 06 May 2008 01:00:10 +0000 mimetolith http://mimetolith.wordpress.com/?p=17 The greening of the leaf. It comes late at 1000 feet. No cherry blossom just yet. A day of sun will bring it on. This is the cherry blossom of 2 or 3 years ago.

"First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is." A poetic precis of enlightenment. A 'phone conversation today bought up categorisation, Darwin, the Renaissance, maleness and autism. And in a broader sense, how the cognitive/intuitive understanding of primal societies morphed, particularly  in Northern Mediterranean/Northern European cultures, into knowledge based upon empiricism, speciality and analysis. 

How it is that such fragmentation of ideas and understanding, in science, religion, Art, have been promoted by a male mindset seeking to find knowledge in ever smaller compartments of investigation, which has had the effect of breaking reality into smaller and smaller and an ever greater number of shards with consequences for communication between related specialisations and "the big subjects" alike, with issues of power and control over minute dominions of practice. Are there not parallels between this behaviour and autism? A macrocosm of individual impairment of social communication and tightly defined areas of specialist knowledge.

It's interesting that it's in science, and quantum physics in particular, that there is a realisation that all is connected, that a holistic understanding of reality is necessary to comprehending the nature of all that makes up the whole. And just as fascinating that this seems to approach a return full circle to a more intuitive cognition of existence melded with a desire to understand, rather than just to know or believe. There was a mountain, then there was no mountain, and now there is.

"The Way", not "My Way"

There's something here about masculinity and femininity. And something about the symbols that appear on old, or continental playing cards. The vessel or chalice that became "hearts", and the sword that became "spades". Containment compared with slicing and dicing. Holding together rather than breaking apart. Contemplation as opposed to dissection.

A view of the park and cherry blossoms from the Kencho (Prefectural Government Building) - steaming potatoes at the greenery festival

Gunma is hosting a national greenery fair this year, so there are floral displays in a lot of cities around the prefecture. Over spring break, we headed downtown to check out the flowers in Maebashi. Of course, since it was early April, there were plenty of sakura blossoming as well. I don't have much to write today, so please enjoy the pictures.

various flowers at the greenery festival: the cherry blossoms are the early-flowering, single-blossomed somei yoshino type

sakura overhanging the river - a boatload of flowers at the park

But enjoy my neighbours, it's only out for 2 weeks and then it's back to being a normal dull tree for the rest of the year.  But these two weeks are my favourite :)

Good weather arrived Thursday and by Friday I'm rendered Hors deCombat by an irregularly occurring problem with an old wound.  From many years of experience I know to seek immediate help from a medic.  Trouble is, I then have to imbibe a cocktail of two different types of antibiotic, plus non-steroidal anti-inflamatories(NSAI'S) and painkillers too.  Lovely.  Just about scrambles what brains I have left and makes me very miserable.  That misery is topped-up by the excellent weather over the weekend and running through to the present.

So, not only am I doped up to the eyeballs but I'm well p****d off by the weather :(

HOWEVER.....As I sit trying to make some sense of this post I can see a tall flowering cherry in full bloom (some of the cherry blossom is even falling) and sitting in its top-most branch is a sleek male Blackbird singing his heart out.  The sound has an almost crystal ring of clarity and I know this, more often than not, presages a storm.  The moments-ago brilliant sky has also turned a slightly murky grey.  Should I gloat?  No not really but in my present frame of mind I really do find it hard not too.  YEAH, I'll have a gloat - just a small one eh? :D

Ok, gloating over for now.

I have spent some fruitful time reasing 'M & G Go For A Walk'  gayleybird.blogspot.com  and find it both informative and funny.  Best of luck to them both.

Time for another cocktail..........................Hmmmmmmmmmmm Nice! :(

I had forgotten to blog about the Cherry Blossom 10 miler race that took place almost a month ago. Funny enough, one of the TV channels was broadcasting about the race while I was surfing while eating dinner tonight. Even more ironically, I hadn't realized that this photo, which was my favorite in the set, is focused on the guy in a pair of flashy bright yellow shoes. He was men's first place. According to the TV show, he had followed some other runner for most of the way until the final couple hundred meters. He shot out like a rabbit and finished the race in a dance. Quite an impressive strategist in addition to being a great runner.

This was the first time I went to a race standing at the sideline. It was one of the best races course ever, cutting right through the beautiful cherry blossoms.  I ran the course the day before the race just that I'd know what it felt like. After having done numerous races over the years, I decided that I do not enjoy racing much. They made me run faster for sure but still, I much prefer the peace and meditative time alone during a run. Running with a crowd to is a big party to some people. To me, it's stressful and almost suffocating. However, standing on the sideline watching a race made me learn how the great runners run. With so much lightness in their feet, steady and strong strides. My running has changed so much since 10 years ago (thanks in part to Chi Running). I no longer run with pain in my shins any more. I run 6 miles on Saturdays. I lean my upper body forward to propel myself forward. I raise my legs up more instead of dragging them along like treading on the road surface.  What hasn't changed is that I still love running in misty rain.. and some of the best time I spend alone.