Around this time every year, Japanese waits in eager anticipation of the cherry blossoms (桜 sakura). The cherry blossom festival heralds the arrival of spring, and marks the beginning of the school and business year in Japan.
Starting from last year, thousands of volunteers have taken part in the Sakura Project to track the arrival of the cherry blossoms.
Japanese will lay down blue mats on the grass patches in parks to indulge themselves in their traditional custom of flower viewing (お花見 Ohanami),and drinking sake while viewing the cherry blossoms (花見酒 hanami-zake).
In the video that follows, you can see many mesmerising images of the sakura blossoms from last year.
Cherry trees blossom once a year, and cherry blossoms do not last long.
If you want to catch the cherry blossoms this year in Japan, you have to book your flight and accommodation soon.
Ever more grim news is coming out about the aftermath of the great 8.9 magnitude Richter scale earthquake, and the ensuing tsunami, which engulfed the northeastern coast of Japan.
ReplyDeleteJapan is facing a grave nuclear crisis at a Fukushima (250 km away from Tokyo) nuclear power plant, damaged in yesterday's earthquake. Authorities have warned of a core meltdown.It will be the worse nuclear accident since Chernobyl
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/12/
Travel to Japan is not advised.
Let's offer our commiseration to Japan, and its unfortunate people affected by this disaster.