Cherry Blossom

Every one who landed in Japan during this time of the year has written about Spring and Cherry blossom. It makes the people emotional and thoughtful. Here is One more from my end !

Springtime in Japan - Hanami Season (or cherry blossom festivities)
Spring is celebrated by every country and relgion all over the world, (apart from places with no spring I guess), and Japan is no exception. Its a busy time of year; as the financial year ends there's an awful lot of paperwork to do, people transeferring (with no choice in the matter) to different areas of Japan and the start of a new school year. So what better way to celebrate the coming of spring than hanami - from hana=flower and miru=to see. Its a tradition dating way back, originally it was ume (plum) blossoms that everyone went to see, but a while back the preference changed to sakura (cherry blossom).

The modern form of hanami sounds like this: get out there early and bag yourself a spot, in busy areas there's incredible competition for places, traditionally reserved by placing a big blue plastic sheet on the ground and pinning it down with rocks. The family orientated version takes place in the day but the adults come out to play at night. There's an incredible amount of organisation that goes into some of these bashes, the young generation here take a crates of alcohol (a keg and gas cylinder...) Many times along with their mental control they sometime seem to lose most of their clothes too. Anyway, there's very little viewing of flowers going on, People get lots of drinks and then drink until the wee hours.

Like every where the things are viewed and defined by generation that rules the years.

It reminds me of Bob Dylan's - 'Times they are a changing ...!'