Tuesday 17 April 2018

2018 Sakura Season in Yokohama: The Keikyu Line

EMU Keikyu 2100 series passes through Byobugaura station

Yokohama is located southwest of Tokyo and is the main city of Kanagawa prefecture. It is the second largest city in Japan in terms of population after Tokyo. As of the year 2017, this city has an estimated population of 3.7 million. Along with Tokyo, Yokohama has many places famous for sakura (cherry) blossoms. Today, I am going to show you one of those spots in the western part of Yokohama.

Yokohama shizen-kansatsu no mori (Forest of Yokohama Nature Observation) is a large nature protection area. You can observe many precious birds there. In this season, my favorite one is Japanese nightingale, because the male beautifully sings "hoh-hokekyo" in the forest. It is so gorgeous that I often look for him, but it is very difficult to find out and shoot his photo. Instead of moving around Japanese nightingales, sakura trees are photogenic. We can see the fully bloomed sakura trees on the slope of mountains. They have light pink-colored blossoms, which show a vivid contrast with the blue sky.

To get to this precious urban forest, the nearest station is Kanazawa-Hakkei on the Keikyu line. It takes 36 minutes from Shinagawa, a subcenter of Tokyo, by rapid-express train. You can enjoy a pleasant journey boarding on Keikyu's flagship model named EMU 2100 series. It is an express train with rotating cross seats. A total of 10 sets were built by Tokyu Sharyo and Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Sakura blossoms on the Keikyu line are definitely my cup of tea.

Fully bloomed sakura (cherry) trees in Forest of Yokohama Nature Observation