Like to the fleeting world of ours,
Methinks, are the frail cherry-flowers,
For they that bloomed yesterday
Are seen to-day to fade away.

Anonymous

It’s cherry blossom season in Japan.

Your humble servant works hard to keep this website focused on tools, as promised, and strives to not pad it with vain and pointless pictures of pets, projects, or product promotions. But every 4 years or so I like to add a post about cherry blossoms, that beautiful flower so important to the people of this island nation.

These photos are mostly of cherry trees and their blossoms in Tokyo proper, a metropolitan area of a little more than 14 million residents containing approximately 13,400 km² (5,190 sq mi). But despite the difficulty and cost of maintaining them, Tokyo’s residents love their cherry trees adorned in white and pink dresses, and look forward to visiting and admiring them for a few days every year. This is an old and worthy tradition indeed.

I don’t pretend to know much about flowers, but I love trees. So I am posting this in tribute to the adornment of the cherry tree, for like all things that live, their petals will be glorious for only a few days, then fail. Can any of us hope for finer raiment or a more glorious future?

YMHOS