I had a few free days last week, and I decided to use one of them to go see the plum blossoms at Dazaifu. After all, until all this shukatsu stuff is finished, I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to see them. Plus, it occurred to me that the last time I was at Dazaifu, it was during my ROCs trip, when I was 15.

Dazaifu Station

Also, I remembered a Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro shop, and I wanted to go back there.

Shopping street leading to Dazaifu

Unfortunately, it was raining AND the shop was no longer there. But, since the plum blossoms were already more or less fallen, I’m glad I didn’t delay going. In fact, I wish I’d gone earlier. There are apparently 6000 plum trees in Dazaifu, and it’s apparently quite a sight. As it is, this is what I saw:

But, there were a few trees that were blooming rather prettily, and when I saw them, I immediately started taking as many pictures as possible. Be warned, picture spam up ahead:

 I was like “LOOK A BIRD”

As though I’ve never seen a bird before. And it’s a good thing the rain wasn’t very heavy, because I stood there for quite a while, trying to get a photo. Birds are not very cooperative creatures. I only managed to get two photos. The one above, and this next one:

And I was just walking around when I saw this. I thought it was pretty, the way the flowers hang down, kinda like shooting stars (I also re-watched/binged watched Meteor Garden recently, so lots of things will remind me of shooting stars for a while):

Oh, and the next few photos are all of THE SAME TREE. It’s literally “this one is flowering! I have to take 12345 pictures of it from different angles!”

This is the full shot of the tree, by the way:

And another shot:

You know what, I removed a photo. You really don’t need to see that many closeups of flowers.

And this is the tree from the other side:

After I finished taking photos of all the photogenic things, I walked around a little and decided to head back. Not before taking in the local speciality, 梅ヶ枝餅 (umegaemochi). I think just about every other shop was selling it, so I used my own method of choosing where to eat at. I chose the shop that seemed like it would have a good view:

It basically says “we have  tea room inside”

The inside was really cosy though:

And there was a huge plum tree in the garden. The view was really awesome:

And of course, my mochi! It’s basically filled with anko and has a thin layer of roasted mochi across it. The anko makes it really sweet, so the tea goes really well with it. I got the single mochi, which was 120 yen, but if I remember the price right, you can get a mochi + matcha set for about 600 yen (or perhaps a little more?)

After eating, I was ready to take the train home, and that’s where today’s post ends. Oh, and I saw the famous Dazaifu Starbucks (it was one of the suggested results when I was googling the place)

It looks really cool, but the queue also looked very long, so I kept a clear berth.