Well, it’s finally warming up enough for the magnolia trees and cherry blossoms to bloom.

After the long, brown, and colourless winter, the spring is always such a wonderful season (even with the yellow dust). The colours are so welcoming, and on a nice warm day like today it’s hard for me not to go for a wander around my neighbourhood and take a few pictures and share them with you.

Of course, the cherry blossoms, which are everywhere, always seem to really wait for the last minute to emerge. They almost tease you with one or two trees here and there coming out early, while the rest wait just until the right moment. I’m quite excited  about next week when all of the trees will be in their full spring splendour (yes, I know they’re bloody flowers on trees).

You can get an idea of what to expect from my post last year.

That being said, they overwhelm you so much with their colour and everywhereness that you can completely miss the riot of colours elswehere – which is why it’s nice to sit back and appreciate the blend of new colours emerging at this time just before the cherry blossoms come out. My favourite of all these is in fact the simple green of the new leaves as they grow back for the summer.

In anticipation of the rest of the trees finally waking up please enjoy these few pictures that I took this afternoon.

(just click on the photos to view a slideshow)