The sakura chase has begun!

It has officially begun!!! First blooms spotted! Chasing the cherry blossoms across Japan on scooter!

We spent today loading up on calories, repairing and maintaining our scooters and having a few quiet moments at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Today is a rest day for our muscles and maintenance day for our scooters. Scooting pass a Pepper Lunch wannabe place, we hopped in and ordered a 300g sirloin steak (and steak only LOL) for a much needed replenishment! We devoured the medium-rare sirloin steak to make up for the three days of convenience store food! (For those who don't know, Pepper Lunch is one of those delicious hot plate food where the food is cooked on the plate that they serve you)

A trip to Don Quijote and Daiso also got us some supplies! We had a generally lazy day, updating our website, looking for tools, restocking our supplies... and enjoying the wonderful weather at the park.

Guess what we saw while chatting on the bench across from the Atomic Bomb Dome?!? The very first blooms of the sakura flowers above us!!! The first flowers spotted on this trip!!! It has officially begun! Chasing the cherry blossom front across Japan, from Kyushu to Hokkaido, north to south of Japan!!! Within each city, the cherry blossoms stay in bloom for perhaps one week of the entire year. They travel from south to north of Japan over the course of a month as they bloom in response to the increasing weather changes in altitude, ushering spring. Can we make it to Hokkaido in time before they wilt?

With that beautiful thought comes other things to ponder. Perhaps we'll spend an evening appreciating how far life has come since the atomic bomb. We'll sit under the first blooms of the sakura tonight and say a silent appreciation in our hearts for the rebirth and acknowledgement of the transience of life. Thank you.

- Michelle Yang