桜花見 Sakura Picnic

桜花見 Picnic with Sakura



After hearing about it in school, reading an article about it and seeing first pictures from Claire's Blog, I had to see Sakura (Japanese Cherry Blossoms) for myself. Actually you can see them on almost every street, which covers whole streets or even cities in wonderful pink, but like Japanese people I wanted to do 花見 Hanami, which usually means having picnic in a park under Sakura, gazing at them from all angles and perspectives.

Now as beautiful as they are, as short lived they are. You can see them in full flower less then 2 weeks in one year. Since the coming weekend is already completely planned out with Anime Fair, Ghibli Museum and the X JAPAN concert (yes I have a ticket hahaha), I was afraid of missing the chance of a Hanami altogether.

That is why despite of being under the week, I followed one of my coworkers to Shinjuku yesterday, to have a little evening/night Hanami in 九段下 Kudanshita (where the 靖国神社 Yasukunijinja is located). In this area you can find a really beautiful park with lots of wonderful Sakura trees.

Now you might wonder what sense is there to do a Hanami (which literally means "to watch the flowers" at night, but I may assure you that since all the trees are lit by lights, even at night a wonderful dreamy surreal scenery is offered to you. In case you even have the chance to be in Japan during the Sakura time, be sure to try both watching them at day and at night!













Some people, all teachers in cooking schools, were already waiting for us to arrive. And later more and more people joined and filled the evening with merry talk. Luckily for us the cooking teachers prepared some self made picnic items (and luckily for me some vegetarian ones too *yay*), while others brought lots of stuff to drink. So it was a really merry evening with lots of talking in Japanese and lots of amazement about the beauty of mother nature.





Alas Ryan and me had to take the last train back, and even more sadly work on the next day. But the Sakura made up for that and only thinking of them energizes me again :)



I hate last trains... ;)

mika