Spring has come

At last the spring weather has come to New Zealand and it is the season for cherry blossoms here. The cherry blossoms here have their own paces and they are not so synchronised like their counterparts in Japan.

Actually large majorities of the cherry trees in Japan are cloned sisters. So they bloom at the same time in one region and the "blooming front" sweeps throughout the archipelago like a wave of cheers by a capacity crowd in a football stadium.

The spectators also go wild in the season in Japan. As the climax is short-lived, the battles to "occupy" better places for cherry blossom viewing parties are really fierce. Because even slight changes of the weather may slow or accelerate blooming, the party organisers have to watch out for weather forecasts to determine the timing of the event.

However, I prefer the way cherries bloom in New Zealand. As each tree has its own time to bloom we can enjoy cherry blossoms for a prolonged period even in one region. Also there are not intense competitions to secure a good view of them. I also like the contrast of the blue sky and the green lawn as the background of pink blossoms.

Apart from the contrast of colours, so was in Japan before cloned cherries dominated there, I think.

The moon over the rainbow

Hawaiians said, "No rain, no rainbows."

After another busy day, seeing the moon over a gorgeous rainbow was just awesome.

Through coloured spectacles

The lenses in the photo above have nearly 90% transparency and give you a high contrast view especially in dawn, sunset and rainy conditions. However, you will definitely feel strange when you wear them as you will lose sense of colours. Your view will go monotonous just with shades of yellow.

It is very interesting as they are only cutting 10% of visible lights and actually boosting your sense of contrast but you can no longer distinguish between colours.

Even more interestingly, although similar things happen when you are focusing on a particular aspect on your observation or experience, you won't notice the difference unlike the effect of yellow sunglasses.

A human is so prone to biases, isn't it?