Tokyo Cherry Blossoms

Unlike last year my timing for this year’s flower viewing has been terrible. Work has kept me busy and my free days have seen nothing but bitterly cold rain, winds and even snow (in northern Tochigi prefecture)! Not ideal in terms of cherry blossom photography. But one early morning I managed to go out and take these in Tokyo’s Gaien district.

The last photo shows The National Diet Building (国会議事堂 Kokkai-gijidō) in the center of Tokyo. A diet is a deliberative assembly associated mostly with countries having an emperor as opposed to a president or a king. The term comes from the latin dieta which means parliamentary assembly and daily allowance, and through a bit of linguistic mutation it has evolved into the Diet of Japan and the tag in the Reichstag of Germany and the Riksdag of Sweden. Interesting stuff, etymology! The only reason I add this is because many tourists often wonder what a “diet” actually is. As did this blogger when he first arrived in Japan.