初春 Early spring

In my home town of Meadville, PA, February is still the dead of winter. In Tokyo, it is already the beginning of spring. Most nights still drop below freezing, but the days are mostly sunny and often climb into the 50s or even lower 60s, on occasion. The plum trees blossom and the daffodils bloom. It's perfect weather for an afternoon walk.

The Japanese love nature, and so even in the midst of this huge metropolitan area of roughly 37 million people, there are little parks and pieces of undisturbed nature tucked here and there. Shakujii park (石神井公園）is just about an hour walk from our place and my favorite place in the neighborhood to get away from city.

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