Cherry blossom. Finally. In Japanese: sakura 桜. The last week of March the trees in Tokyo are in bloom. And again this year, notwithstanding the smooth winter weather, exactly on time.
It is really being lived towards. It starts with stores putting decorations in the window.
De Pachinko does it bigger.
A single tree already starts. The trees bloom for one week. Then blossom falls and green leaves take over. And thus the blossom announces the start of spring. Very clearly. It is worth a party. Hanami 花見 (litteraly: flower watching) is the festival of flower watching. The steerability of nature is limited of course so normally the timing is a surprise. And perhaps it is because of the Law of No Surprises that this is an exciting phenomenon. Though, it is on exactly the same moment every year, so it is a bearable case of surprise
Then again the rules of the game are explained. The idea is to have a nice pick nick under the blossoms. The blue sheets are spread out. Everybody brings food and drinks. And then it is pure joy. The beautiful view and the scent. The whole city smells like it, even down under in the metro!
A few days before commencement of hanami.
First blossom is spotted. Picture taking and sending it to friends. Conveniently with a cell phone that can take and send pictures. Also the big camera’s are rolled out.
A familiar thing is the bento お便と, the lunch box. The man on the right has a beautiful box with partitions with sushi, rice balls, vegetables, omelette etcetera. It is the most common lunch here. And as fish should be eaten fresh, bento is sold daily in the street by vendors. For 500 Yen you will have a good lunch (€3,-).
Another very familiar scene is fumbling a packing with the inevitable pedantic nosy comments by the wife.
Hanami is utterly Japanese. And as we all know, it is advised to leave a party at the best moment.
How convenient... we are leaving tomorrow to the Netherlands.
Even the workers in the street ( and on the right the odd regulator with torch) participate in Hanami.
And of course the good bye lunch with Eiichi and his students was a very good opportunity for Hanami.
