If you?ve ever thought about visiting Japan, you?re probably familiar with the advice that you should ?go for cherry blossom season.?
The annual blooming of sakura (cherry tree flowers) and accompanying nationwide conviviality of hanami (cherry blossom-viewing) can indeed be a magical time to experience the joy of being in Japan.
Cherry blossoms at Hikone-jo (Hikone Castle), Shiga Prefecture
For a brief window each spring, Japan?s parks, gardens, and canal-sides blush with fleeting blooms of pink and white, signaling the coming of longer, warmer days and beckoning people outside to shake off the winter doldrums.
Park lawns large and small become a patchwork quilt of picnic blankets and tarps, as families, friends, and coworkers convene with bento boxes and beer, sake, and sweets. The grounds of temples, shrines, and gardens throughout Japan ? aesthetically exquisite to begin with ? get an ephemeral grace note. Many stay open, and beautifully illuminated, into the cold and moonlit spring nights.
Sakura at Takayama’s Nakabashi bridge
Japan?s cherry blossoms have been celebrated for centuries in such art forms as haiku, ukiyo-e (woodblock prints), and traditional music. In a culture deeply imbued with Buddhism, they are a natural symbol of the notion of impermanence, a yearly reminder of the transience of all life. (According to Japan expert Donald Keene, it was the writer Kenko ? author of Essays in Idleness, one of our favorite books ? who most helped ingrain this conc...