It's that time of year again!

You guessed it!  Cherry blossom season!!  Oh, was that not your guess?!  Well, the correct answer is cherry blossom season.  aka one of the prettiest times to be in Japan.  There are cherry blossom trees EVERYWHERE.  People have them in their yards, schools have them, they line the streets, and then, there are the parks full of cherry blossom trees.  This weekend, we road-tripped to one such park.  It is in Ina, which is a city in the south of Nagano Prefecture.  It took us about 2 and a half hours to get there, but it was lovely.  We went to Takato Park, which is actually listed as one of "the places to see cherry blossoms in Japan."  Read about Takato!  Unfortunately, the trees were not in full bloom, but the park was nice and there were a few early bloomer trees that were quite lovely.  Let's just let the pictures tell the story, ok?

Cute mini gate and temple of sorts with a cherry blossom tree!

ooOOOOOOooooo

That is cherry blossom flavored ice cream.  yum.

Food. 

The tarp of foreigners.  We attracted quite an audience.  At least 3 times that I saw (and who knows how many times I didn't see)  people took pictures of us without asking.  Like at a zoo.

As you can see... not quite full bloom, but still quite nice.

The park itself was really pretty.  Bridges and ponds and things.

More half-bloomed blossoms.

yay!

They're so pretty.

awww.

close up!!

The park from below.

These one were fully bloomed.  And oh so pretty!

The path to the park (or one of them, I guess)

Like, I said, there are cherry blossom trees everywhere.  This one is in someone's yard.

And more by the river.