Cherry Blossom viewing in Ueno Onshi Koen, Tokyo
The Cherry Blossom Festival is perhaps the most well known festival in relation to Japan. Tourist from all over the world would visit Japan especially during this period to enjoy Cherry Blossom hanami. The festival is held all over Japan and viewing can start between January to April each year and depending on which part of Japan you’re in. One place that you can go to is the Ueno Onsji park in Tokyo. It is one of the more popular parks visited during this season. Every year you will see the park is filled with people picnicking under those beautiful cherry blossom trees - it’s like a celebration for the beautiful flowers above. Among various food people eat in cherry blossom viewing,dango is very popular. It is a chewy snack made of rice flour.
Cherry blossom viewing has been a Japanese custom since the 7th century when aristocrats enjoyed viewing blossoms and started to write poems about them. That is perhaps the beauty and magical qualities of the Cherry Blossom Festival - everything is just so surreal and beautiful, as though you’re in a dream. As just as it is just a dream, the cherry blossom’s life span is short lived - making its appearance highly appreciated year by year. In short, the cherry blossom is like a metaphor to Life in Japan. The budding, the brief, brilliant bloom and the inevitable fall seems too much like the lifespan of a human being. I guess it makes you realize that life is short and that beautiful is as beautiful is at this very moment before it is lost forever.
The radiance of cherry blossoms, their scent,
Ever fresh with every passing year -
So man grow old, eternally.
- Ki no Tomonori – Kokinshu 84, Cherry Blossom in Heian Waka poetry.
Pictures taken from Japan Lifestyle and Japan Guide
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