On cherry blossoms - and other things - in Japan

A couple of weekends ago, cherry blossoms were in peak bloom in Tokyo's Ueno Park, which is pretty much sakura central for Tokyo residents. Just a few locals joined my family and me for a stroll:





The cherry blossom viewing for many people involves claiming a patch of ground with the ubiquitous blue tarp and having food, :



and a drink, or ten:



(I am not sure if he is in his underwear or his speedos. In any event, I reckon it was about 10 to 12 degrees at the time of the photo.)

Cherry blossoms are very pretty, and the weather forecast on TV each night shows where the cherry blossom "front" is over the whole country. (Naturally, the trees in the more northern and colder parts of Japan start flowering later than those to the warmer south.) More information on sakura trees is, as usual, at Wikipedia. (One thing they don't mention is that a spring time treat is a mochi rice sweet that comes wrapped in a sort of pickled sakura tree leaf. I can only imagine that someone centuries ago must have been really hungry to think about how to make these tree leaves edible.)

Ueno Park also has a smallish zoo, but the throng of people there on this visit made it impossible to get good photos. People are herded particularly quickly past the panda bear enclosure, and I had but a glimpse of a reclining black and white body.

By the way, as global warming would have it, Japan's winter this year was (I am told) particularly cold and snowy. Unexpectedly, I ran into snow into the northern part of Honshu only about 10 days ago. This was the scene outside the onsen hotel after a night of gentle snow:



Damn pretty, hey. (This is a good time to note that my problem with Melbourne winters is not that the minimum temperature is so low - the suburbs in Brisbane often have lower overnight temperatures - it's just that Melbourne suffers from a seemingly interminable number of grey, wet, cool to cold days without ever having the off-setting prettiness of snow.)

Onsen are the Japanese hot spring baths, and most are attached to hotels or inns (ryokan) with Japanese style rooms. Wikipedia has a good summary about them here.

Maybe most people have seen these over the years on the travel shows, but I am in a sharing mood:



This is the washing area next to the bath itself. You sit on the stools and use the shower or basin to wash yourself before getting in the bath, which in my case looked like this:



This is actually the outside bath, as you can see from the snow in the background. The temperature of the water is usually so high that sitting in it with your head and shoulders in the snowy air is pleasant. (Well, if you splash a bit of water on your shoulders every minute or so.)

There was no one around when I took these photos. They are nearly all gender segregated anyway, although that may not stop a cleaning woman being around if you are having a morning bath!

I can tell you that an absolutely essential part of all Japanese TV shows about travel within the country is the scene in which the host is sitting in the local onsen bath, quickly followed by a discussion of the local area's specialty food. (With host tasting it and saying in an exaggerated way "oishi" or "umai", meaning "delicious".)

The Japanese style room will look something like this (insert your own close relative, you can't have mine):



No beds, just futons laid out on the tatami floor in the evening for sleep. Most onsen hotels will include a very nice dinner served in the room with lots of little dishes. This one we stayed at was a "public" onsen, which is cheaper and did not have this option. However, the food served in the dining room smorgasbord style (Japanese call it "viking style", which I find kinda funny) was still very good.

Oh well, I need to catch up on some sleep. More travelogues to come.

(And, just in case you don't realise it yet, clicking on the photos above bring up enlarged versions.)