BONBAI (盆梅) - Plum tree bonsai in Japan

"BONBAI" is Plum bonsai (many photos attached below), I get to know the bonbai exhibition (長浜盆梅展)in Nagahama in Shiga prefecture during my visit to Japan on end of January, 2009 where they put up a lot of poster at train station around shiga and kyoto. I also get to know that the plum tree bonsai exhibitions in Nagahama called "Nagahama Bonbaiten" is one of the most famous bonbai exhibition in Japan and the exhibition has been carry out every year since century ago.
The bonbai exhibition is held at Keiunkan, Minato-cho in Nagahama City, Shiga Prefecture.
This year 2009 is the 58th Nagahama bonbaiten which mean this event started back at 1952.
According to the staff, the best time to visit this exhibition is around middle to end of February, but this time I visited on the 28th January, so many of the plum flowers noy yet bloom.
Since the exhibition center is indoor, the photos are not very well capture, sorry!!!.

From
http://www.spiderwind.com/

This Bonbai estimate around 400 years old. The name given is "FURO" which stand for "not old".

When you get tired, sit down on the first floor of the exhibition center and take a sip of the japanese "matcha", a bit bitter but the "manju" on the right hand side is sweet enough to cover the bitter taste of the tea.