Plum (ume) tree viewing

Today, one of Sam's colleagues took us plum tree viewing with his two sons. Not too sure where we went, but it was past Himeji somewhere.. =P The plum trees produce a different type of plum than western plum. It is more sour plum and usually eaten in it's pickled state commonly in onigiri. The Japanese plum trees are beautiful trees with a delightful sweet fragrance. We saw four different colours - white, pink, red (although it was just really dark pink) and blue/green. I say blue/green as they call what I consider green to be blue. The traffic lights are called red, yellow and blue (green) =P. The blue/green one was slightly green a bit like greenish hydrangeas. We saw a quite a few people who would venture off the path into the trees to find a nice spot to sit and have lunch under the trees.
 

Plum blossom tea - salty like the seaweed tea in Kyoto

Close up white plum tree

Close up 'red' plum tree

Pink and red

Close up pink plum tree

This one was a pinky white

Green plum tree

Sad weeping plum tree

Sam's colleague took us out for some eel lunch. It was really good! They also gave us 3 whole charcoal grilled 'sama' fish. It was tasty fish, but it was a little difficult to eat due to all the little bones as we hadn't eaten one before. We watched a variety show the other week, where they showed and ranked housewives skills and manners in eating this fish. I was trying to remember how they showed the proper way to eat it whilst slowly destroying my fish. =(