Yesterday we had a really nice day, with temperatures in the 20s. This sudden warmth prompted all the cherry blossoms to flower earlier than predicted. Now a lot of the cherry blossom trees are in full bloom. Unfortunately, this bodes poorly for our upcoming trip to Kyoto April 9-11. This means the trees will probably be losing all their flowers by the time we go to Kyoto. Still, it will be nice to go back there again. It's such a beautiful city. Victoria and I are going along with two of our friends from Toyama, Mike and Kelly. I don't really know Mike that well, actually. But hopefully I can get to know him better on the trip.