My birthday

My birthday came and went. By far the quickest year of my life! It seemed as though it was just yesterday I had a little one in cupcake pants :)

We met our neighbors downstairs for some takoyaki and they were by far the best we've ever had! One of our neighbors even made me a Japanese cheesecake (crustless), and we had ice cream too! :) Yum!

After lunch, we went to the Hokkaido University botanical garden...but it had closed for the day! Bummer! 

So instead we went to the end of Odori park hoping to get some good rose appreciation. In the past, my birthday has followed the same formula: rain, cake, good food, roses, photography. It's funny to me that some things just never change. ;)

Cool slides in Odori park.

Look at the blooms! :)

Kevin and I agreed that this rose was the most intense red we'd ever seen.

These towers were just gorgeous. This rose was Butterscotch if I remember correctly.

The roses were beautiful, but pansies will always catch my eye ;)

After the rose garden, we went to Kevin's school so he could check on his project and after that, we looked for Picante, a soup curry restaurant, which is by Hokudai. We found it tucked away and had an amazing soup curry dinner that has me salivating just remembering it! :) 

Great birthday indeed!

Snippets

In between the rain:

an afternoon at Nakajima koen

 

An example of how they "prune" trees here... they just lop off the top?

 

Enjoying the times I get to spend with Elisabeth and her chunky thighs and crazy antics.

 

A quick walk before the rain to seishin park on Elisabeth's FIRST birthday. 

 

What becomes of the cherry trees. No cherries!

 

Always making me laugh with her silly expressions. :) 

Gotta love those teeth!

I'd share photos of Elisabeth's little birthday party downstairs (what a debacle baking cakes were! Ack!), but they're on Kevin's phone... yeah, too busy to take "real" photos. Either way, it was a lovely little party with some of our neighbors and we had pizza, chips and cake. :)

So nice that they wanted to celebrate with us. :)

Nakajima and Odori revisited

For my dad's first full day in Sapporo, we decided to head to Nakajima koen with some store-bought sushi for a park lunch, then walk to Sapporo station via Susukino district. 

It's a walk Kevin and I have done before, and I chose it since I think it is quite scenic and gives you an idea of the what the downtown area is like. 

We stopped at Horohira bridge along the way and my dad did the walk up the arch and admired the views like I did in this post here. 

When we got to Nakajima koen, we were in for a treat! At one of the "squares" there, there was a plant market! YAAAY! So my type of thing. It was a shame though that I couldn't buy anything since I can't really take anything home to Finland. :( It was still a cool thing to see and I totally could have spent a lot of money there! 

Someone was selling perfect teeny weeny bonsai.

 

Someone had rose bushes for sale.

 

Someone was selling succulents in every color.

 

A pretty rose.

 

Someone had veggie garden stuff for sale. 

 

Lots of flowers.

 

Primroses.

 

Pansies.

Someone was selling bushes and small trees. This large pine in the picture could be yours for only about $2000! 

 

Pretty dusty red rose.

 

I think these are for a rock garden maybe?

 

And these?

 

Such fun! :)

 

We walked on to the little lake in the park.

 

And found the weeping cherry tree still had some blossoms left. (I took a picture of this on Sunday)

 

Ah, perfect. ♥

My favorite part: the Japanese garden.

It was extra serene this time, the perfect place to stop and snack. It being a Wednesday early afternoon, not many people were out, especially since the weather wasn't great. So peaceful.

 

Perfect reflections. 

 On our way out of the park, we had to stop so I could take MORE FLOWER PICTURES! 

I know, it's kind of ridiculous, but the heart wants what the heart wants. ♥♥♥

We walked through a rather quiet Susukino to Odori park. 

Obligatory tourist photo below:

 

Lots of pretty flowers all through the blocks of Odori. (more about that later)

 

After walking around Daimaru, Esta and Apia, we took the subway home to meet Kevin. 

Then we went to Seiyu to do some grocery shopping and made another yummy meal. 

What a fun day! :)