Chrysanthemum tea anyone?

From left : Ayu, Dibah, Syou, Aan, Umi, Vincent Lai Chee Wei, and the dude in red...

Had a 3-day weekend holiday last weekend...seizing that opportunity, Randy tricked some girls
into providing him transportation to wherever he wants to go. In this, Randy actually means he asked some friends to join him spend the day outside...

I wanted to see autumn leaves so, I did some research on the net....I found a place called Momiji-dani(Maple Valley) in Yahiko, a village north of my place. It is supposedly a very beautiful place with breathtaking view of red maple leaves....so, I made plans with a few of my closest friends over the weekend.

And so I drove for one and a half hour to get there, singing Spice Girls along the way......reached there only to be greeted by rain. Damn, WHY?!!! But luckily, I was with a bunch of crazy people...and crazy people don't easily get depressed by rain.


So what we did was find a spot beside the parking area, and settled down for a little picnic....

Had rounds of delicious nasi goreng that wasn't really nasi goreng, blueberry coffee cake that had no coffee in it, and many plates of laughters for lunch. Was beginning to think that we had to go back as it was raining when suddenly, the rain let up!!

Okay!! Looks like autumn leaves watching is still in plan....


Wha....where are the red leaves? Why are the maple trees still green?!! Damn maples have been photosynthesizing for almost half a year, now they are too selfish to turn red and make me happy...

To early to be disappointed, I walked in a little deeper..


Damn...seems like the leaves are still planning to abuse the sun for another 2 weeks....

And so the truth came crashing down on me...

I came to early.....the leaves are not dying yet...


But the girls were happy nonetheless, grabbing every spot that had little red, and camwhored like there's no tomorrow....

No red leaves? Fine....there's another event nearby anyway. The Annual Chrysanthemum Festival held in Yahiko Shrine...




When someone mention chrysanthemum in Japan, one does not immediately think of Yeo's chrysanthemum tea. You see, while sakura is the hollywood star, chrysanthemum is their royal flower. Yahiko Shrine is one of few places that hold these kind of festivals yearly..




They are quite big in size...about the size of a small pumpkin...and in a variety of colours too..






And these are the tiny ones that we are all familiar with...you know, the ones floating in our tea cup. The way the flowers were arrange...you can see the essence of Japanese art in flower arrangement. Such beauty and harmony...


Highlight of the day....chrysanthemums arranged to resemble some landscape at sea. Beautiful ain't it?


Something like this...


And so the day's main event became Chrysanthemum Festival....not the original autumn leaves. But despite my poor timing of events, I had loads of fun that day.

And I never thought that I would one day sing Spice Girls songs at 23 years-old while driving ......haha.