![cherry blossom season 2014 (3)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-3-652x435.jpg)
photo by masato mukoyama | Keage Incline (Lake Biwa Canal) at night
This year’s cherry blossom season – thanks to some heavy rains over the weekend – is just about wrapping up in Japan. 2014 was made all the more poetic as “5% parties” bid farewell to the old tax rate and welcomed in the new 8% rate under short-lived, fleeting cherry blossoms.
For one reason or another, this time of year is particularly difficult for me to travel to Japan and, once again, I am here in NY watching Instagram photos appear in my feed and then quickly disappear; transient as the cherry blossoms themselves. Here is a small selection of some of my favorites that I’ve come across recently. And you can see more over on visual aggregation site Bored Panda.
Last year was also special when a seasonally-rare snow made for some pretty amazing pictures too.
![cherry blossom season 2014 (4)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-4-652x435.jpg)
photo by danny dungo | the drainage system of the meguro river never looked so good
![cherry blossom season 2014 (5)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-5-652x435.jpg)
photo by yuga kurita |Mt. Fuji and cherry blossoms
![cherry blossom season 2014 (7)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-7.jpg)
photo by ryosuke yagi |cherry blossoms in Aoyama, Tokyo
![cherry blossom season 2014 (8)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-8.jpg)
photo by ta3mam | Tokyo
![cherry blossom season 2014 (9)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-9-652x435.jpg)
photo by torne | a 200m-long slide at Nishihira-hatake park in Kanagawa
![cherry blossom season 2014 (1)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-1.jpg)
photo by 紅襪熊 | along the meguro river
![cherry blossom season 2014 (2)](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cherry-blossom-season-2014-2-652x435.jpg)
photo by noisy paradise | along the meguro river
[Update] one late bloomer, added to the collection:
![BmUWU5ACMAAB4cm](https://www.spoon-tamago.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/BmUWU5ACMAAB4cm.jpg)
cherry blossom petals along a river in Hirosaki Park, Aomori | photo by @WizardsTools
April 7, 2014 at 8:25 pm
Really, really awesome photos!!!
April 7, 2014 at 8:26 pm
Wow, this is BEAUTIFUL!!! I miss sakura in Japan.
DC was such a disappointment. (el-o-el)