Fake Cherry Blossoms

It's finally Spring again, and the way you find out about Spring while going about your business here - in the midst of this concrete, steel and plastic mess that is the most populous metropolis on Earth - is from all the fake cherry blossoms that begin sprouting this time of year in the subway, in stores, from lampposts, and even inside vending machines. Here are some photos of nature's latest bounty. (Note: I've also posted previously on the real thing.)

Update (April 5): I've added some more photos from last weekend! See below.

At the subway ticket gates:

At the underground train ticket sales office:

At the Coke bin in the grocery store:

In the meat section:

At the Back-to-School Sale (the Japanese school year begins in April):

In the sewing and crafts shop:

After a long hunt, this past weekend I finally found a vending machine with fake cherry blossoms! I'd seen one of these years ago and had been looking ever since.

Finally, Ueno station takes the prize with this genuine cherry tree, erected in the middle of the station's busiest concourse last weekend at the peak of blossom-viewing time, complete with roots. Hopefully it will be returned to the soil in the next few days.

Comments

You can view the vending machine picture here:
http://kf.typepad.com/jlog/KIF_1158-tm.jpg

The image link appears to be missing a slash ("http:/")...

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Thanks for the tip! It's fixed now. I couldn't figure out what the problem was, since it worked on my browsers. Perhaps some browsers are more forgiving of my lousy HTML than others!

Keith

[just passing by]

nice photos.
the vending machine photo is not loading. can you repost that one? would love to see it. thanks.