Happy Spring, everyone!

Anyone who is currently in New York knows that today feels like the first actual spring day we’ve had this year (and it’s supposed to be nice tomorrow, too!). Spring is my favorite season, so of course I wanted to take advantage of this gorgeous weather and dragged Conor out to Central Park to hunt for cherry blossoms. 🙂

There are a couple different types of cherry trees in Central Park, according to the park’s website. The Yoshino Cherry blooms from mid to late April, so that must be the kind we saw today. It is said that the first of these trees were brought over as a gift from Japan in 1912. How sweet! c: The other kind is the Kwanzan Cherry, which doesn’t bloom until early May and is smaller in size. We’ll have to go back and see this one in a few weeks!

We weren’t exactly sure where to find the cherry trees in the park, so we decided to just explore and find them ourselves. We ended up walking the entire length of the park (my first time doing this!) and saw many gorgeous cherry trees! ^^ To see a list of the best places to find them, just click here!

I would highly recommend bringing a blanket and some picnic food for a traditional hanami (花見, “flower viewing”) experience in the park. There’s nothing quite like relaxing under a beautiful cherry tree and watching the world go by with some good friends and delicious onigiri.

Oh–by the way! Next weekend is the Sakura Matsuri at Brooklyn Botanical Garden! This annual cherry blossom festival seems so amazing, and I’m excited to experience it for the first time~ 😀 You can learn more about it here, and they encourage you to buy your tickets in advance. The schedule for the weekend is filled with interesting Japanese events, so if you love Japanese culture like I do, you won’t wanna miss this (I’m hoping there will be tons of Shiba Inus, hehe)! 🇯🇵🐕

I hope you’re enjoying the arrival of spring and get to witness the gorgeous cherry blossoms around the city before the last of the petals fall. Until next time! 💕