Good evening!

Decluttering my sakura 🌸 notes today

**Let’s learn about hanami in Japan 🇯🇵 **

• Enjoy the burst of buoyant energy Japan exudes when spring has come.
• Check cherry blossom 🌸 forecasts issued by the Meteorological Agency to know when sakura are likely to bloom in popular parks & castles.
• Buy sakura mochi - rice cakes filled with red bean paste& wrapped in a salted cherry blossom leaf - and have a hanami party
• Different places showcase different sakura.
• Somei Yoshino have 5 near-white n pink-tinged petals. Bloom in early April & fall within a week. Oldest Somei Yoshino tree planted in 1882 in Aomori Prefecture!
• Shidarezakura (Kyoto’s official flower) have drooping branches that look like those of a weeping willow. Have cascades of bright pink flowers
• Kanhizakura are dark pink and shaped like a bell. Native to Taiwan & Okinawa, they can bloom as early as Jan but are still found flowering in March
• Kitazakura are a kind of yaezakura (blossoms with more than 5 petals). Can have up to 100 layered petals & usually bloom later than Somei Yoshino.
• Places to go in Tokyo: Nihonbashi Sakura Street
• Places to go in Japan: Hirosaki City (Aomori), Fujiyoshida City (Yamanashi), Takata Park (Niigata), Matsumoto Castle (Nagano)
• Soak in the transcendental beauty of 🌸

I took the above photos while living in Kumamoto Prefecture