In April every year, the cherry blossom trees (sakura in Japanese) bloom and that means lots of drinking outside. I celebrated “Ohanami” for the first time in Japan this year. It reminds me a lot of July 4th in the US. You meet up with friends and eat and drink in warm weather while enjoying being outside.
I went to two ohanami events…
First was my company’s event that was fun with plenty of drinks and food for everyone. If you click on the above picture you can see a lot of photos of the event and a bunch of pictures of my current coworkers. It was beautiful but in some ways the beauty is kind of ruined by the number of people and the ugly tarps that everyone insists on using. Everyone wants to sit on the ground and with the Japanese obsession with cleanliness this requires big tarps be put down everywhere so no one has to sit on the actual ground. The majority of these are bright blue. It is not beautiful.
A week after that I went with my friend Chie and some of her friends to Yoyogi park in Harajuku. It was near the end of the ohanami season, the petals were falling off at a rapid pace, but still the extensive trees in bloom were beautiful. There were TONS of people in Yoyogi though. Seriously, it was crazy. Click the above picture if you’d like to investigate further.
There was an absurd amount of outdoor live events going on to the point that it was annoying. Like, a rock band concert and three techno events all within audible distance from one another blasting their speakers as loud as possible to attract people. It was carnival like. If you’re in the right mood I think it’s great but if you want to really focus on the natural beauty it is not the best place to go.
All in all it was a good experience but the next time I go I want to find a quiet place where I can completely relax.