Two days ago I had one of those "I love living in Japan" moments.
I was watching the news (hence the posting under current events) and they did a long segment about the first cherry blossom opening in Tokyo. They then showed a graph of the expected time from the first blossom to full bloom and the last petal and then showed a map of Japan with dates of when Haika was expected for different areas.
Usually news is about disasters and tragedies or somtimes the strange story. What I really liked about this story was the treatment of this as BIG news. It seems like such a small deal, but in Japan they take their cherry blossoms seriously. The main reason is that sitting under the cherry blossoms and picnicking and drinking (called Hanami) provides one of the main social events of the season. From family outings, mama gangs with toddlers or the obligatory office Hanami party, cherry blossoms mean big business for beer, food and vending companies.
I blog about Hanami just about every year since I started blogging. See? It's hard not to get sucked into it. The only thing really marring my Hanami pleasure this year is the fact that an electrical company cropped the branches of a street of cherry trees to protect the power lines. Last year these trees were sensational. I was really looking forward to photographing them this year but now they are stunted and choppy looking. Still no leaves and only a few blossoms so maybe it will be better than I expect. I can only hope.
Looks like it will be a nice hanami season this year. The weather is warm and there hasn't been much rain.
Go cherry blossoms!