Sakura -- the time we met

Steven and I love sakura and when we first met, sakura was fully bloomed in Tokyo and the petals were falling on us when we did a river ride on Sumida River. It was very romantic and the sakura made us feel closer to each other so since then sakura became not only our favorite flower but very special to us :) One of these days, we will take a month off and chasing sakura from south of Japan to North. Usually sakura start to bloom in the middle of March in Okinawa and in the middle of April in Hokkaido.) Since we cannot go to Japan to see sakura this year, we went to Hakone Garden but it was too early because of cold rainy weather we have this month. However we found a sign of Spring such as cute pink sakura buds on the tree and buds of Wisteria.















And this is our spring brunch before Steven went to his biz trip to Shanghai. Notice the sakura shaped chopstick rest, sakura gohan (rice) and sakura shaped ninjin (carrot)

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(from top left)
strawberry
Nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with miso paste)
Kyuri to kani no sunomono (Cucumber and crab meat vinaigrette salad)
Asparagus no gomayogoshi (Asparagus with sesame sauce)
Tai no misozuke yaki (Broiled Miso marinated red snapper)
Shitake, ninjin to kabocha no nimono (stewed Shitake mushroom, kabocha pumpkin and carrot)
Sakura gohan (Rice with dried sakura)
Okura no misoshiru (Miso soup with Okura)