It's hanami time!

It's hanami time in Tokyo, where the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in bloom and Japanese spend their lunch hours sitting under the sakura drinking sake and enjoying their lunch in the breezy comfort beneath the trees. The whole act of viewing the sakura is called hanami. Sakura are in their peak season only one week out of the year, so it is a large event, with entire magazines devoted to letting Japanese people know when the sakura have bloomed in various parts of Japan and where the best places for viewing are. Different parts of Japan have different sakura seasons, with Hiroshima and southern Japan's buds opening as early as January or February, middle-to-northern Honshu prefectures from late-March to early-April and Hokkaido in mid-April or so.

Primo spots for hanami are highly contested, and Japanese will spread out mats in the wee hours of the morning and write their names on the mats in Sharpie pens in order to "claim" the spot for the entire day. Some of the most famous viewing spots are extremely crowded, and unfortunately the beauty of the sakura is somewhat eclipsed by the ubiquitous blue tarps and food stalls serving everything from fried ika (squid) and tako (octopus) to yakisoba and roasted sweet potatoes. [Hmm, this reminds me that I really need to do a Japanese food write-up soon!]























Jeremy, Kaitlin and I went to Hommon-ji, a little-known temple in the Nishi-Magome area of Tokyo to view the sakura and escape the crowds. We found that even the workers in the area didn't know where Hommon-ji was even when we asked them about it! But it was indeed a hidden treasure, with not so many visitors, but beautiful sakura throughout the koen (park) area and in a cemetery near the temple complex. There was also a nice pagoda which many folks were photographing.




Later on, Jeremy and I went to Yasukuni Shrine and the nearby Chidorigafuchi and Kitanomaru Park, the only Imperial Palace grounds that are opened to the public on days other than January 2nd (the day after New Year's) and December 23rd (The Emperor's birthday). It was absolutely gorgeous, and the beautiful blossoms *almost* make one forget about the controversy surrounding the shrine. At the shrine, a Book of Souls commemorates Japanese soldiers killed in war, and includes 14 Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo which are enshrined there as well. This angers many Korean and Chinese protesters, especially when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits the shrine. No protesters this day, and luckily there were no right-wingers there either, with their loud booming megaphones and creepy nationalistic songs! The shrine itself has a nationalist perspective in its War Memorial Museum, which calls war "sorrowful," but fails to mention any atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II.

But I digress! Let's not forget the pretty, pretty sakura!