So here’s the thing about finding the illusive cherry blossoms (AKA sakura) in Japan, they’re damn hard to find. Most people get an imagine sakura in Japan as huge luscious forests of pink and white canopies blanketing the landscape dispersed over the unending horizon. The truth is that sakura are only in full bloom a couple of weeks a year and it changes depending on the location, the temperature that year and any other fickle thing nature decides to throw in the mix. This means that planning the best time to see sakura in a great location is really a guessing game. Also, the added pressure of only having one year here, only having the chance to see this season once (unless I come back) and Abby coming with great expectations of seeing some beautiful sakura made my job all the more difficult. I found a
blog by a guy who was going travelling throughout Japan documenting how the sakura were blossoming in that area. But even he could only speculate on when they would be in full bloom if they weren’t already and if they already were in full bloom where he was at, they might be out of their peak bloom by the time I got there. So what does it take to see some nice sakura in Japan? Luck.
Getting to Kyoto
When we got back from Hong Kong, Abby and I were already pretty tired. Hong Kong was jam packed full of activities and we really hadn’t had a moment just to stay around in one place and relax for a while. Unfortunately, I had planned that we would leave bright and early on the next day to catch a 6 AM train that would include about 7-8 hours of train riding. We decided to travel by local train with a special ticket that is only available during the vacation season and allows you to take any JR local train for a whole day for cheap. This was a very good deal but quite an ordeal (unplanned rhyme). I had some friends help us buy tickets and translate a schedule for us from Japanese to English. A special thank you shout out to Masa-san and Ai-chan for their help. This was no problem except that the schedule was an intimidating lineup of 11 train switches at intervals as short as one minute. This means that if we missed the one minute transfer, we could be stuck at a station for an hour and our whole schedule would be out of order. Nevertheless, I was determined to figure it out and we were packed and ready to go for the next morning. But of course, Murphy’s Law kicked in and my alarm clock failed to wake us (because it ran out of batteries). We awoke at 7 am, jumped out the door and realized our schedule was already off because we were supposed to be on the first 6:01 train and follow each successive train afterwards. So after some deliberation we decided to spend an extra day in Fukuoka and perhaps cut Kyoto one day short.
Mixed Blessing
The extra day that we gained in Fukuoka turned out to be quite a mixed blessing because we spent the day at one of Fukuoka’s biggest parks where sakura were in full blossom and if gave us a chance to recuperate a bit. And in fact many of the best sakura we saw were in Fukuoka.
Kyoto
We left the next day for Kyoto as planned. We set two alarm clocks this time. I spent the 8 hour train ride switching between taking one hour naps, mapping out all the best destinations in Kyoto and figuring out the most efficient routes. We were lucky that the hostel was a 15 minute walk from our first and possible most famous temple, Kinkakuji, aka The Golden Pavilion.
I had planned out a full 4 day itinerary but we had to try to fit it into 3 days. On top of that, we would later lose another day, so we just tried our best to see the most that we could. We proceeded through about half a dozen more temples that day and got on a bus going in the wrong direction. After backtracking we ended up deciding to spend our night view looking at Joji Castle which is the one and only castle in Kyoto and I felt it was time well spent.
An Awesome Live Koto Performance
Day two was kind of rainy with points of intermittent drizzle. I decided to take Abby to Arashiyama to see the monkeys and famous bamboo forest. The misty rain was both good and bad. It obviously made picture taking a much bigger hassle since we would share an umbrella and take turns taking pictures and holding the umbrella for the other person. But it also added a really cool and ominous atmosphere to some of the scenery.
At night we decided to go to Toji Temple which is the tallest pagoda in Japan (I think) and then went to Fushimi Inari Taisha but it was already dark by the time we arrived and it was quite spooky. I think Abby really didn’t like the torii gates so much because it looked as if anybody could be hiding behind and ready to jump out at every gate… and there are thousands of consecutive gates. Unfortunately, the place is quite a labyrinth and though we were determined to try to walk the whole trail, we actually got lost and somehow wandered into a residential area which I had no idea existed. It was strange walking up a mountain amongst one of the most famous temples in the world and then just ending up in small windy residential streets. After much work we reached the middle point, caught our breathes, took a nice picture and made our way home to our hostel. The rain and night really made the hike up not so fun. Abby was happy just to get to the view point. The next day was supposed to rain but we had decided to simply determine on the day of whether or not we wanted to head home early because temple viewing in the rain is really kind of a hassle. I woke up at 6 am somehow and saw that it was literally pouring. So we quickly packed all our things and decided to leave Kyoto a day early. On the way back we somehow coincidentally met up with Baptiste on the same train. We got to chat a bit and share stories about our respective trips. He was just on his way back to Fukuoka after a 3 week trip around Japan and we both had a lot to tell each other. We had spent literally every waking moment with each other together in Southeast Asia and then suddenly I hadn’t seen the guy for almost a month, so it was a warm and welcomed reunion. On our way back we made a short detour to a small town I still don’t know the name of (I forget). We were lucky enough to catch the wedding procession of a newly married Japanese couple. Snapped a few pictures and got back on a train an hour later.
Choice Shot of Kyoto: Chasing Birds
The next day was a slow and easy day, running any extra errands and at night we got the extra special treat of going to an Hanami, a traditional and popular Japanese tradition of holding a picnic out at a park or public space around blossoming Sakura. The sakura was noticeably less full than just a few days ago and we realized how fast and fleeting the cherry blossom season really was. The food and company was good but we all were almost frozen solid by the time we left the park.
The next day I saw Abby off to the airport. I don’t know if I can properly convey how much I appreciate Abby coming all the way out to see me and travel with me. It was really a meeting that I was not realistically expecting and I know how much (time, money, etc) she had to sacrifice for me in order to make this trip a reality. I hope she enjoyed this short and sweet excursion as much as I did. I wouldn’t have wanted to share the beauty of the sakura season with anybody else.
