And here I am again, back with more blossoms!
But don’t worry, these aren’t just any old sakura…they are yaezakura, the blossoms with many petals. You might remember some photos from last year from later in the season.
This year, I happened to pass by this red entrance and see the burst of pink yaezakura blooms…and I ended up walking into the most beautiful yaezakura paradise ever!
I didn’t know there were so many different kinds of yaezakura, but this temple had several varieties of them, ranging from white-ish to pink/green-ish blossoms. (I know, such technical terms!)
They were absolutely gorgeous. As much as I love regular cherry blossoms, I may be leaning more towards these full blossoms now. What about you? x
Here are some photos:
Kaori Square Feet 
I really like the colors of the darker yaezakura 🙂
These sakura are so cute and fluffy ! I was surprised when I saw them the first time.
When I went to watch the wisteria last week there was one kind od wisteria that actually looked like the yaezakura but purple~
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The blossoming serie is awesome 🙂
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Some of those fluffily, gorgeous “pom poms” look like decorations for the happiest, most auspicious celebration ever. The photo with the blossoms, water-smoothed large pebbles, and your feet made me feel like taking an airbrush, some indelible pink ink, and lightly airbrushing a touch of your new shoes, just so they would match more closely. But the flower shapes as they are are a close enough match.
The way you incorporate elements of the temple make so many of these photos look like the most beautiful and memorable postcards from Japan.
Thanks for this post.
Noodling around the interwebs I found that the temple is said to have been founded around 1,100 years ago by the Buddhist priest who originated the hiragana script: Kobo-daishi (Kukai). The temple is also said to be famous for a kind of cat jizo. In fact, a nickname of the temple is Cat Temple. I like to think it had some connection to the origination of maneki neko but I certainly could be wrong. There are so many other origin stories of maneki-neko. One site writes about the temple that it, “…enshrines a ‘confidential’ cat-shaped jizo statute.” Confidential? Maybe that means it is not open to public view. Actually I could find it here and a closeup here. Why that cat connection might be is explained in a story:
“Sometime during the mid-16th century there was a knock-down, drag-out fight between two guys: Toshima and Ota. While fighting, Ota lost his bearings and managed to stumble upon a black cat. The cat led him to the temple where Ota was able to recuperate. Upon regaining his strength he was able to defeat Toshima. In gratitude for the little black cat which saved his life, Ota ordered that a jizo be sculpted in the shape of a cat. The statue is known as neko-men jizo or jizo with a cat face.”
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Yes, the pink were my favorite, too! The trees really make an impact under the sky!
Did you write a blog post about your unique wisteria? Very curious 😀
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Thank you Babzy! I miss it already 😉
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Yes, I'd heard about it being called Neko-dera! I've never seen the confidential cat jizo…I'll have to stop by sometime 😀
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