A lot of International Organizations organize bus trips to popular places. This was was one of them, 2 buses at 5000 Yen per pax, with food and drinks plus an on board karaoke. It was indeed exciting but what excited me most was the site and the flowers that was waiting to be photographed.
Ashikaga Flower Park is a very large park with hundreds of different flower species, but it is well known for the "wisteria". Its called "fuji" in Japanese and it blooms like grapes falling from a vine. Available in different colors, this one is the main attraction.
We met at Shibuya at left an hour and 30 minutes late from schedule. Note taken, if we are to organize something like it, we will leave behind late guests. 30 minutes is the maximum waiting time allowed. My god, an hour and a half of waiting for 1 person, it is ridiculous.
I know from then on that it will be a bad day. Weather forecast said a it would be a fine day of 27 degrees but we never expected 31 degrees. It was too hot that it was almost shocking. We were just 2 weeks into spring and yet this temperature. OMG! Even the ice creams melt in seconds. Regardless of the heat, we went on to reclaim that we should enjoy the trip. Shooting mostly portraits, because we cannot concentrate on macros and close up shots for you cannot stay long in the open.
The other half of the trip was suppose to be "Strawberry Picking". It wasn't, the strawberries were small, most ripe and big ones were obviously gone from a series of trips done a week before. It was not even worth it. Too hot inside the greenhouse and that was just it. I thought that the whole trip was 1 or 2 weeks late. We could have done it during the "Golden Week", but I guess we learned our lesson. I said, next time, we go on our own, take the car and just drive. Most of the other guests inside the bus were too noisy anyway, you can't sleep or sing with them because they will rob you of your song. Organizing such events are not easy but I thought I can do better.
But nevertheless, here are the rest of the photos. The only thing that were giving us spirits was the chance to try my wife's new 50D.
Hey I live in Ashikaga! That's too bad that your Ashikaga Flower Park trip was unpleasant. Those fuji flowers really are something to see, though, aren't they? I wrote a little post about it if you are interested. http://milito-in-adventures.blogspot.com/2009/05/some-local-tourism.html
ReplyDeleteI was supposed to join a tour too, about the same time you had yours. but I had a prior commitment so i missed it. i really wanted to take pictures of the flowers.
ReplyDeletenice picture.
ReplyDeleteliked the flower that looked like white orchids.
hope it fits on my 1600 x 768 resolution. nice wallpaper