Wise Woman Travel

Seeing cherry blossoms – or sakura  as they’re called in Japanese – is one of the main reasons tourists visit Japan in late March.

And, of course, it’s not just tourists who anxiously await the iconic clouds of white and pink to drift into view. All over Japan, cherry blossom watches and forecasts, some of them updated daily, come in from one end of the country to the other. Japanese experts regularly examine “sample” trees in 58 locations around the country, and when 80% of the blooms on these trees have opened, the cherry blossom season in that locale is declared  “in full bloom.” People then have a week to ten days to enjoy wandering among the trees, marveling at their delicate beauty and taking #cherryblossom selfies.

Unfortunately, this year, Mother Nature kept everyone waiting, ripping up the cherry blossom schedules and forecasts and scattering them like so many petals in the spring breeze.

An uncharacteristically warm winter in most of Japan, followed by chilly weather in the last week of March and early April, meant the blossoms stayed cozily inside their buds. We saw about six trees with a blooming branch or two open in all of Tokyo. Hiroshima?  No luck there either. Wakayama? Same. I joined other tourists and local enthusiasts as we strategically positioned our camera phones to zoom in  on whatever blossoms we could find.

By the time we left for Okinawa,  which is so far south that their cherry trees finished blooming in February, I’d decided that we’d be among those tourists for whom cherry blossom season remained elusive. Sure, I was due back in Wakayama on April 8 for a visit with my friend Kazue but by then, it looked as though the cherry blossoms would  be off the trees there. I tried to follow the philosophical advice of the 13th century Japanese author Yoshida Kenko, which I saw reprinted on an English language website: “Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless?” 

And, then, today, Ono.

Kazue had told me before I left Canada that she’d be taking me to see her mom in a small rural town called Ono, which is famous for a 5 kilometer corridor of cherry trees. On our way there, her mom texted her that the traffic was likely to be heavy because the trees were in full bloom. At last!

After lunch at her mom’s, Kazue and I walked across the bridge behind her family home in the bright sunshine, and there they were – as far as my gaze could reach, one blooming cherry tree after another.

The great thing about Ono’s cherry blossom corridor is that it’s not a tourist destination. I was the only non-Japanese person wandering the path. These trees are also special because each of them has been adopted by a local family who has posted a plaque beside their family tree or planted some spring flowers at its base to enhance its beauty.

Cherry viewing for many Japanese people is an event. We saw lots of people sitting under the trees on blankets with picnics and thermoses. A young dad held his fat- cheeked baby up to a blossom so his mom could take a photo. A grandad  posed under a tree with his grandson. An elderly couple set up a photo of their whippet dogs in matching sweaters, positioning  them in front of bright pink, red, and purple parasols. Young couples took  selfies, flashing teeth and V signs. 

As we walked, the petals were already starting to drift down. Kazue said we came at just the right time – in another couple of days, the trees will be mostly bare. In Japanese culture, the arrival of the cherry blossoms symbolizes the coming of spring and new life, but their fleeting beauty is a reminder to enjoy life and embrace its many joys while we can.