Time out

Today I took a day off and went to a flea market. The timing isn't that great, actually, because we have almost a whole week of public holidays coming up, but they start on Friday. However, I decided that since there are no flea markets over the holiday week, I'd just have to go to one now.

It was a gorgeous day for it.

I took a LOT of photos, and so many of them came out well I'm having trouble trying to figure out what to put up here. I imagine if I put up my favourite twenty-eight pictures nobody will be too pleased with me, so I won't do that. Perhaps I'll put them up a few at a time. (And perhaps I won't. Perhaps I'll put them up a lot at a time.)

There were some late-blooming cherry blossoms still blooming at the temple. These are the double-blossomed cherries, and my American friend told me that in the U.S. these are called Japanese cherry blossoms. I didn't know that.

They were lovely.





The chindon players were there again. I know I put pictures of them up last time, but that was a long time ago and I like them, so here they are again:







I took pictures of dolls again. This time there were some rather naughty dolls. Unfortunately the Barbie flashing her boobs was one picture that didn't come out (it was blurred), but here are a couple of others. The second one looks like a terrible flirt.





There was also some rather creepy baby dolls.



As usual, there were several heads, but there was only one torso. One of the heads was made of glass:









After we'd finished wandering around the market, we sat in a little park next to the temple, under a white wisteria, which was blooming beautifully and smelt divine. Apparently the bumblebees thought so, too, because there was a constant buzzing up there and they were all over the flowers.





This would have been a picture of a bumblebee, except that it flew away just as I pressed the shutter.



Do you know how hard it is to take a decent picture of a bumblebee with a cheap camera and not much patience? Also, my neck hurt after several attempts, from looking up. This was the best I could get.



These kimonos hanging around a tree were colourful. The whole day was colourful. It cheered me up.



I will not put any other pictures up today. This is more than enough, and anyway, right now I have to prepare tomorrow's classes.