March 19, 2009

Sweet Magnolia


I've started to see alot of magnolia flowers blooming on my way to work.

I think this one is the Yulan Magnolia. The flowers sort of stand upright on the branches. But if you look really closely, because the flower starts blooming on the south side where the sun hits them most, all the flowers tend to lean north.

From far away it sort of looks like a bunch of birds are perched on the branches.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the first time for me to visit your blog.

I can almost smell the sweet fragrance of the magnolia blossoms. I love the way you have a traditional sangawara tile roof in the near background. Your observation about the blooms’ start and direction they face is quite perspicacious.

Now I am living in Southern California and I really miss the passage through four distinct seasons that are found in Japan.

The first couple times I visited Tokorozawa I was shocked and surprised. You see, I was working a part-time job in Higashi Murayama coming from Kokubunji. Usually, Higashi Murayama was the last stop on that line. So what was I doing in Tokorozawa? It took a couple of times until I realized that Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, at the time in the late 1980s, had the Seibu trains go one stop further to make it easier for fans of his Seibu Lions to reach the ballpark in Tokorozawa when there were games there.

Looking at this and your other blogs I haven't been able to decide whether you are a native English or Japanese speaker. Your English grammar is impeccable but there was your spelling of the word suppose that you wrote as “sappose” that makes me think maybe you are stronger in Japanese. ICU?

Forgive me for rambling but around the same time in the late 1980s or early 1990s I found myself enthralled by an erhu player who would sometimes play not far from the ticket gate to the Keio Line in Shinjuku. Tonight I just watched a DVD of the 2004 Chinese movie “House of Flying Daggers.” There is an erhu version of the main theme song—“Lovers”—in this movie performed by Jia Peng Fang. I believe he is the same erhu player I enjoyed listening to those many years ago. Recently I have been trying to play this song on shakuhachi. You know something? Jia Peng Fang is a much better musician than I will ever be. I am lucky to have a number of his CDs, none of which are titled “Magnolia.”

Kaori said...

Gary, thanks for the comment. Glad you liked the photo.

I've been on the train that goes from Tokorozawa to Kokubunji too. I had no idea it was for the baseball fans though.

Not sure which language I'd call native, but I'm definately Japanese. And spelling was never my forte :)

Tall Gary said...

“I’m definitely Japanese but not sure which language I’d call native...” There is a story there, isn’t there? I’m curious. Bilinguality (or the command of more than two languages, as well) always has me awestruck.

The first time I got on that train in 1987 Marui at Kokubunji was just some people’s idea. I was thinking maybe the stops have changed since then but according to Wiki they are the same: Kokubunji - Koigakubo - Takanodai - Ogawa - Higashi-Murayama (no official Tokorozawa). Anyway, it’s nice to see what I have been missing being stuck all those years ago just one stop from your city. Thank you for your “Kaori’s eye view.”

Tall Gary said...

I was just looking at Tokorozawa via Google Earth and realized that the Seibu trains don’t go from Higashi Murayama to Tokorozawa on days of baseball games. They go to Seibuen Station. Boy, is my face red. Now I am shocked and surprised at my own stupidity.

Tall Gary said...

Anyway, here’s a map. You can see that Seibuen is the next stop from Higashi Murayama but a different line. I just assumed it went to the other “next” station when I opened my eyes at the end of the ride.

(Actually, I’m just posting this comment to see if I can do HTML links. I freaked out before when I checked out HTML links in “Preview” here because the link opens only in the comment box that way.)

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