Ome Plum Blossoms

This past Sunday, Dereck and I were able to go to a Plum Blossom viewing in the nearby city of Ome (said like "Oh-may"). Our friend Chelsea who we have been staying with set up the trip and a few of her friends came along as well. We got to use the train system to get there, and it was fun to have another experience doing that. It only took about 30 minutes to get to Ome and then we had to figure out where to go from there. Its a big local tourist attraction so there were some police officers that were at corners and helped to kinda point us in the right direction. We followed these signs that had a blossom on them with a little red arrow (even though we couldn't read the writing) and came to a little garden. It was cute, and there were some blossoms, but it definitely was not a "tourist attraction". We doubled back on the street we went on and came across a Japanese tour group marching along the road. We stepped in with the back of the group and were successfully lead to the blossom garden. All the streets in Japan twist and turn all the time, and with the buildings built up to at a minimum of 2 levels, you can't see where you want to go at all. So we were happy to find the tour group to follow!

Once we turned a corner and the blossoms came into view we knew we were in the right place! They smelled so good from a distance so we knew that up close they would be amazing. The trees grew up this hill and down in a little valley and the park had a bunch of trails that would weave all over. The valley was surrounded by these huge pine trees that reminded me a lot of home in northern Minnesota. It was 200 yen to get into the park (around $2) and totally worth a lot more than that! The trails were wet from a big rain the night before but they are well kept so it wasn't too bad (or dangerous). We all got a good working walking up and down so many steps that day! My favorites were the trees that looking like they were spilling over, almost like a waterfall, and the ones that had bright pink blossoms.

See the mountains and the city in the background? And the plum blossoms are in the middle of the forest? how cool is that?

These "waterfall" trees were some of my favorites!

On our way back to the train station a bunch of vendors were open and selling their goods and food. Dereck got a mochi ball, which is a rice paste with some sweet bean paste and his happened to have some sort of fruit in the middle as well. He really liked it! I bought a rice past pancake that also had sweet bean in it and it was also very good. Dereck bought what he thought was chicken friend on a stick, and when he bit into it, it turned out to be hard boiled eggs (and not chicken eggs, because they were tiny!). He actually liked that too!

On our way back to base we stopped at lunch at a place that served "american" food...but with their Japanese twist. I ordered some "Tex-Mex Teriyaki Tacos" that came with teriyaki chicken, avacado, cabbage, and mayo on them. Very NOT "Tex-Mex" but actually quite good! Dereck's shrimp sandwhich had salsa on it though- kinda funny.

So that was our day at the Plum Blossoms! Here are few more pictures for you.