half-life in the twilight: April 2006

Monday, April 10, 2006

Hanami

Today I'm sick, so I found some time to update the blog with this post about Hanami.

A FACT KNOWN TO ALL OF HUMANITY:
Japan looks its best when sakura (cherry-blossoms) is about.

As with all of the countries in the world, in terms of natural beauty spring is the most beautiful season of the year. But in Japan, sakura blossoms and makes nature at this time unbelievably beautiful! Ofcourse, japanese people agree and they take any opportunity they can to celebrate the beauty of nature under the beautiful flowers. The amazing combination of white and pink in this tree inspires japanese people (nature's beauty always does this, doesn't it...). But here's the catch: the flowers don't usually stay longer than one to two weeks! So this beauty, once a year, represents how beautiful moments in life are so frail and pass quickly. So, almost all japanese go for hanami, which is having a picnic under the sakura (usually involving alot of drinking!). To give you the size of the importance of this period, tv-stations monitor the progressing of the blossoming throughout Japan, while a hanami usually kick-starts the new academic and fiscal years!

Enough talking, on to the pictures I managed to gather... Unfortunately, most of them are not at the peak of the season which is usually around

My house :)

Near my house

Unfortunately there's a problem with blogger.com. Will post a couple more soon!