Hanami or Cherry Blossom Parties
19. It's been a terribly terribly long winter, but the cherry blossom season has finally arrived! This Saturday I found myself exploring Lake Biwa in Otsu-shi, the capital city of Shiga prefecture. A couple of my fellow JETs and I thought that the largest lake in Japan would be oober picturesque and filled with lots of cherry blossoms.
Unfortunately, the lake looked more like this. Beautiful, no doubt, but also very very desolate. And very very devoid of sakura trees. We were hungry, however, so we set up our picnic and started to eat. The weather was highly uncooperative, and less than halfway into my sandwich, it started to rain. Like the wicked witch that would melt with water, we fled to a nearby mall.
Completing our lunch indoors, we decided to try our luck at Miidera temple, about a 20 minute walk north. But alas, our luck continued to sour, and though I thought it was a beautiful area and would have been satisfied simply wandering for the rest of the day, I didn't think the 500yen admission fee was enticing enough for my companions.
Completing our lunch indoors, we decided to try our luck at Miidera temple, about a 20 minute walk north. But alas, our luck continued to sour, and though I thought it was a beautiful area and would have been satisfied simply wandering for the rest of the day, I didn't think the 500yen admission fee was enticing enough for my companions.
So we hopped the train and made our way back to Kyoto. After consulting the train maps hanging inside the train, I suggested that we get off the train at Higashiyama. Following the crowds and consulting my phone, I directed our group towards Heian Shrine, where we came upon a weekend festival with group after group of Japanese cultural dance groups performing a single number before relinquishing the stage for the next group. Remembering my FA and Archi loves just having finished Asian Arts Fest, I couldn't help but remember that it was just this time last year that I was running around performing and doing ridiculous costume changes between acts...how fast life goes, no?
But of course, Kyoto did not disappoint. Cherry blossoms galore, and crowds and crowds picnicking and drinking the afternoon away.
Very easily, I am hooked. I have been bitten by the sakura bug. Every day this week, I am intent on finding a new wonderful place to see them. Objectively (or maybe not so objectively), cherry blossoms aren't really impressive when you look at them as individual flowers. In fact, the plum blossoms I saw last month were more striking in color and shape and smell. But take a look around almost any remotely nature-esque space, and there will be clumps of trees and an overhead blanket of cherry blossoms to wow you. Like how the sheer overwhelming nature of the iphone has added to its allure, the inability to escape the cherry blossom is a very real component to its charm.
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