I’m glat to know that many people read my sakura post part 1 🙂 It motivated me to post part 2 a.s.a.p but it was challenging to choose pictures out of so many pictures 😉

4 May
Sakura at Vanha Kirkkopuisto has reached the peak. Blossoms will be gone soon. The fact that we can see cherry blossoms for only short time is one of the reasons why I am attracted to sakura. (I might be obsessed.)

5 May
It was an amazing day! Weather was beautiful and I saw the most gorgeous sakura in Helsinki. It stood on Mäntymäki. I hadn’t known the place had a name but now looked at the map and got to know it. I posted the picture in the Facebook and friends asked me where it was. I explained to them that it’s on Helsinginkatu between the Opera and the Olympic stadium parking. I don’t have to explain how gorgeous it was, I guess. The picture tells it. I was extremely happy when I saw it and there were many other happy people around. 🙂

From Helsinginkatu, I continued walking to the other side of the bay. I wanted to check out Tokoinranta. I hadn’t known there were Sakura trees at Tokoinranta before but saw the post about “hanami” event at Tokoinranta. (the event had been cancelled, of course!) They have been planted recently and trees are still small. But I am looking forward to seeing them growing year by year. It’s a nice waterfront location.

7 May
A friend and I cycled from Kamppi (the friend cycled from Lauttasaari) to Ruihuvuori kirsikkapuisto (sakura park) by city bike. It was much cardio exercise 😉 We just wanted to keep social distance from others. It was tough but we are proud of ourselves. On the way to Roihuvuori, while we were cycling, we saw gorgeous sakura somewhere near Klosaari. It was in front of an apartment building. I thought I could move there! There were new sakura trees near Roihuvuori sakura park. I think they are new as I hadn’t seen them before, and they were small.

Roihuvuori sakura park is a must when it comes to sakura. Sakura and hanami have become extremely famous Japanese words in Finland (and the world, I think) and popular things. Even though “stay-at-home” situation was still on, people were in the park to enjoy nice weather and beautiful flowers. It was Friday morning that we chose to avoid crowds. We actually left Kamppi before 8 o’clock. We also sat under small cherry trees a bit far away from the main area and enjoyed our own hanami. Sun was warm on our back and our small sakura was pretty. (I heard the next day and Sunday, the park was packed.)

9 May
We visited a very special place to see sakura. The Japanese “karesansui” garden is located in Viikki. It’s designed and constructed by a master, Kazuo Makioka (http://www.teishamakioka.com/). I realized I didn’t take a picture of the whole garden and can’t show it to you very well but it was an authentic Japanese garden. We had hanami under sakura having amazing Japanese lunchbox a friend prepared. It was so special!

Wikipedia says;
“The Japanese rock garden (枯山水, karesansui) or “dry landscape” garden, often called a zen garden, creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water.”

We walked from the Japanese garden to Vanhakaupunki. Some of us continued walking further. I walked to Araia and on the way we found more sakura spots. One was next to Annalan huvila, another one was opposite side of Iittala & Arbia design center, the other one was just on the way.. .I can’t remember… (next time I will mark it in the map on the spot) I walked a lot again!

I have a couple of more places I would like to add to the Sakura walk post. Those will be in the next post. Stay tuned 🙂