Nikki
HANAMI,
FLOWER TIME!
Who has never seen these images of Japan? Landscapes covered with pink to white flowers whose petals fall like snowflakes to cover the flowerbeds of gardens and other walking paths.
This is "Hanami" or literally "looking at the flowers". It is a time when time no longer runs according to the hands of the watch (or the digits of our screens to be more current 🙂 ), but it is the time when the rhythm goes according to the blossoming of the cherry trees ( sakura in Japanese ).
It is a time when the Japanese take time for contemplation, a time to stretch a blanket under a cherry tree and admire its branches full of flowers dancing in the wind.
"A BEAUTIFUL SPRING NIGHT
SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED
WHILE WE WERE LOOKING AT CHERRY BLOSSOMS"
A little
HISTORY
Like many Japanese stories and myths, the origins of the Hanami custom do not all converge on the same starting point and there are a few different ones. They range from the nobility reciting poems in a reverie by a river, to the Shinto religion and the peasants who take the time for a day to share a meal with the Kami (deities in the Shinto religion) who settle in the cherry trees in early spring. For those who are curious, at the end of these few paragraphs, we offer you two links to the websites japan-experience.com and nippon.com, each of which tells you a version of the origin of this spring custom. We have retained that this moment has become a time for admiration and a pretext for getting together to exchange, drink and celebrate spring. We shamelessly repeat here the conclusion of the article on japan-experience.com: "The cherry blossom symbolises life on earth: beautiful, fragile but fleeting".
TOKYO
In Tokyo, along the Meguro-gawa river, Tokyoites enjoy a real staging of cherry trees for ten days. On the one hand, the falling petals end up creating a real carpet that flows along the canal and on the other hand, a play of light reinforces the magical aspect of the scene.
HIMEJI
In this city west of Kobe is one of the last wooden castles in Japan. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a medieval fortress called Shirasagijô or literally, the White Heron Castle. We put a link at the end of the article to learn more about this monument that has crossed the ages.
HIMEJI
In this city west of Kobe is one of the last wooden castles in Japan. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a medieval fortress called Shirasagijô or literally, the White Heron Castle. You can find a link at the end of this article to learn more about this monument that has survived the ages.
... CROSSING
JAPAN, TO THE RHYTHM
OF THE BLOSSOMS...
Some of you may have heard of the Shinkansen high speed trains. But in reality, Japan's railway network is not limited to those. Indeed, Japan is among the most, if not the most, dense countries in terms of railways.... Even in Switzerland, we don't do better and yet we are saturated. Finally, you should know that if you visit Japan, it is possible to book a ticket called JR Pass (japan rail pass) and that it offers you the possibility to use a lot of transport in addition to the train and to travel easily through the whole country. What does this have to do with our cherry trees? Simply, that the Japanese railway company offers you the possibility to follow the staggering of the blossoms which extend from the end of March to the end of April. With your JR Pass, you can follow the whole flowering period in the main Japanese cities.
Flowering map
IN CONCLUSION
We hope that these few lines will have allowed you, during the blooming of a Sakura flower bud, to dream of a journey through a Japan tinted with pink and white.
On these first days of spring and in view of the particular context that surrounds us, we invite you to take the time, as in Japan, for a reverie where, for a moment, the rhythm of our life would not be that of the minute of the clock, but that of a flower that blooms and whose petals dance in the wind.
There is surely a cherry, plum or other flowering tree near you, at the foot of which you are invited to lay down your blanket, your picnic and take just a moment for the contemplation that reminds us that nothing ever really lasts and that everything starts again.