Cherry Blossoms and Misawa Park

Cherry blossom season has come and gone in Misawa. Sadly, it doesn't last very long. We did our best to fully enjoy this brief, but beautiful time of year.

I didn't realized it until they bloomed, but most of the trees lining the main streets on base are cherry blossoms. The base was beautiful, especially the main part of base. Sadly, north base (where we live) is mostly pine trees. I was definitely a little envious.

Every year, when the cherry blossoms bloom, the Kindergarten classes take a filed trip. They walk from the school to a nearby park on base and have a picnic under the cherry blossoms. It was a fun outing.

But it was hardly enough to satiate my newfound obsession with these beautiful trees. I took Caleb to Misawa Park, in search of more sakura. The park is a nature park, with several beautiful walking trails. It is near the Misawa Train Station, sandwiched between a Bhuddist Temple and a Shinto Shrine.

There was a small parking lot across the street from this shrine.

We found a playground down in this little bowl, with cherry blossoms ringing one side. I was a little disappointed that the threes were kind of far away. The view wasn't as pretty as I had hoped.

Caleb didn't care. He had a lot of fun on this rusty old playground.

Caleb loved this slide. It ends in this large sandpit. He did a face-plant the first few times, so it was nice to have a soft landing in the sand. He got the hang of it though.

After playing, we explored the rest of the park. This is when I realized that from the playground, we were seeing the back of the cherry blossom trees. The sakura viewing area was up above. And it was glorious.

Unfortunately is was a gray, gloomy day. Not great for taking pictures.

We also enjoyed exploring the rest of the park. It has paved trails and more rugged, natural trails. It isn't a huge park so Caleb was able to manage exploring all the trails with me.

We love exploring this beautiful and unique place in which we live.