Full bloom

Everywhere you look, pink petals flutter, trembling on trees before twirling down like confetti at a wedding. They spread across lawns in pink carpets. Japan blushes pink. Ladies trip along in silk kimonos embroidered with pink flowers and waitresses lodge sprigs of pink in their hair. On television, the pink blizzard is tracked northwards on weather maps that announce cherry-blossom season to a nation feverish with anticipation.

This might be the best season to visit Japan, although nature’s timing is never predictable. The first buds appear in the south in March and fade in far northern Hokkaido in May, although there are exceptions. Kawazu on the Izu Peninsula has special early-flowering cherries that bloom in February, but aim for mid-April in central Japan (which includes Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka), and leave some leeway for nature’s whims.

The Japan Meteorological Agency declares the official beginning of the season with the budding of two trees at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo and the prime minister hosts an elegant hanami (blossom-viewing party) in Shinjuku Park. Ueno Park is another busy venue – blossom viewing is accompanied by an antiques fair and evening partying under paper lanterns.

Take a romantic rowboat out onto the moat of the imperial palace at Chidorigafuchi to admire the overhanging cherry branches. Sumida Park in Tokyo’s northeast hosts a festival along the Sumida River where locals again take to rowboats to admire the blooms. On the riverbanks, tea is served and weekend entertainment includes demonstrations of vigorous taiko drumming and folk dancing.

Sakura (cherry-blossom) time is both an outrageous silly season of picnics, parties and pink kitsch and a deeply felt cultural celebration. For centuries, the sakura has represented purity and innocence in Buddhist philosophy, transience and mortality in painting and literature. The season is also seen as a time for fresh beginnings – April in Japan is for weddings, job transfers and the start of the new academic year.

As soon as the earliest buds appear, the blossoms are honoured with nationwide festivals, traditional music recitals, tea ceremonies and costumed processions. It’s also time for hanami parties, a courtly custom that likely dates back as far as the eighth century.

Now everyone gets in on the act. “In the cherry blossoms’ shade, there’s no such thing as a stranger,” wrote late eighteenth-century haiku master Kobayashi Issa.

In Nagoya, Tsuruma Park fills with food stalls, noisy evening picnics and drunken recitals of poetry at corporate hanami parties. More tranquil Heiwa Park has over 2000 cherry trees, while aficionados will want to head to Higashiyama Botanical Gardens to inspect 40-odd cherry varieties. Four Seasons Path by Yamazaki River in the city’s southeast is one of the top cherry-viewing spots in Japan, and the park around Nagoya Castle provides another prime location for pink picnics.

Find a castle and you’re sure to find a handsome display of cherry trees. The castles at Sendai, Himeji, Fukuoka, Matsue and Matsumae have spectacular sakura displays. Takada Castle is renowned for night viewing, with food stalls set up under 4000 trees illuminated by lanterns. Odawara Castle hosts a particularly good festival that includes a parade of kimono-clad children and tea ceremony under the blossoms. Osaka Castle also puts on a magnificent flower display, while the Okawa River beyond features 5000 cherry trees along a four-kilometre promenade through Sakuranomiya Park.

At no other time will you find the Japanese so cheerful, friendly and sentimental. Whether in parks or on mountainsides, blue tarpaulins are spread out under the trees, entire families gather for picnics and outdoor merriment begins. People recite poetry, get tipsy on sake and tuck into sushi and salads.

Wannabe pop stars warble into portable karaoke machines, with Sakura Sakura the inevitable song of choice. Elderly ladies infuse dried blossoms to make sakura-yu tea, the petals unfolding as hot water is added. By nightfall, lanterns glow among the trees, chicken skewers sizzle on makeshift grills, and old folk fall asleep with sheets of newspaper over their faces. 

Maruyama Park in Kyoto has lively evening hanami under superb illuminated weeping cherries that will soon have you chatting to locals. Japan’s ancient capital is crammed with glorious temples and palaces whose grounds put on the best sakura display in the country. Geisha are out and about for the season, cherry-blossoms fixed in their lacquered hair.

Celebrations in Kyoto have a cultural edge – a daily tea ceremony under the weeping cherries at Hei-an Shrine and performances by traditional musicians, dancers and geisha at Kobu Kaburenjo Theatre. On the second Sunday in April, Daigo-ji Temple hosts a sumptuous hanami in an unbroken tradition first started by the local shogun in 1598.

‘The samurai of Japan is like the cherry, which blossoms and dies so suddenly and so beautifully’ goes a much-quoted Japanese poem. A key element of the power of the sakura is its short life. The blossoms are seen at their best for only a couple of days and last little more than a week, making this sumptuous celebration is achingly transient.

The Japanese become maudlin as the season fades, quoting sad poems about the shortness of life and the fleeting nature of beauty. After a while, the blue tarpaulins are folded away, kimonos boxed in tissue and portable karaoke machines and traditional instruments fall silent. The last few petals drift from the trees and nature’s pink flamboyance fades, leaving only memories. But what memories they are.