Waiting for the cherry blossoms and starting to say good bye

I just got back from my last capoeira practice in Japan. I'll miss Norie, Gruiro, Tessore, Neguinho, Raphael, Junior, Himesan, Estudante, Kingi,... all of them are very, very fine people. Even if I don't know how to spell their capoeira names I'll never forget them. Playing capoeira with them and being part of their group was one of the highlights of my stay.

Odd. Yesterday I felt homesick after videoskyping with my sister for 2 hours. Now I feel that it is too soon to leave. BTW, in case you don't know yet, I'm arriving in Vienna on April 21 around midnight. However, I'll only stay until the 24th, then I'll go visit Gwen for a week in France. The two days I'm in Vienna might be very busy because of some work related stuff. If I don't get a chance to see you then, maybe we could meet on May 3rd. I'm not sure when I'll be in Vienna again after that.

Another odd thing is the perception of time. It's seems like I've arrived in Japan only last week. I remember my first impression of Tsukuba as if it all just happened yesterday. I particularly remember the cherry blossoms everywhere and my first earth quake (btw, now I got so used to them that I hardly take notice of them). Soon the cherry blossoms will be every where again. Here is a picture I took at the same place I took the cherry blossom pictures I posted previously (April 1, 2006).



Cherry blossoms are very special, but by far not the only amazing thing in springtime. Plumbs have been blooming for weeks now (and to me they look very similar to cherry blossoms), and there is another tree that is blooming right now, and I've never seen anything like it. The blossoms look like white roses, and they are huge! Here is a picture I took but it's a bit hard to see how big they really are. There is one flower right in the center of the picture which has almost opened all the way.