Notes

🌸Hanami Festival🌸

It's translated to 'flower viewing', its the custom in Japan of having parties underneath the sakura trees when they bloom in early spring.

Things you can do;

-Eating underneath the sakura trees is the main thing you can to at Hanami, eating and talking with your friends and family is something that everyone loves to do at the festival, as well as trying all the different foods; Onigiri, Miso, Bentos, and the traditional meat and vegetables.

-Hanami parties are remarkably popular in Japan, virtually the entire country participates. People will reserve party spots under the trees with blue plastic mats, and in some cases, people arrive a whole 12 hours before the party to lay down their mat. People treat the blue mats as they would the floors in a Japanese house, so you must remove your shoes before stepping on the mat.

-You might expect flower viewing parties to be a quiet, introspective event, but Hanami is filled with fun. It's not unusual for a DJ to play music at full concert volume in a park. Drinking in the great outdoors is a Japanese tradition.

-There is a Kayaking Tour that many people love taking, its a 10km ride and will take about 2 hours to come back, but it's an amazing experience of the beauty that is Japan.

-Something that the Japanese love doing is making cherry blossoms into ice cream.

Interesting Things;

People who have died are buried underneath the Sakura, many say that you have to believe it, is else you couldn't possibly explain the beauty of the Sakura blossoms.

For late night picnics, which are known as 'yozakura', the Japanese hang paper lanterns in cherry blossom trees to illuminate them and make their beauty shine.

Why I chose it;

I love the beauty of cherry blossom trees, as well as the soft yet sweet smell that they give off. I love all of the myths and stories around these beautiful trees, and the trees in themselves are just something that I can't see anyone hating. Unless of course they don't like the colour pink.