Cherry blossoms bloomed briefly and spectacularly in Japan
CHERRY BLOSSOMS bloom briefly each spring. Above: the grounds of Nijo Castle in Kyoto.
We booked our recent trip to Japan a year in advance to see the cherry blossoms, which only bloom briefly in the spring. Bamboo forests, geishas and fresh seafood are among the country’s many other charms.
We arrived in Tokyo on a cold and rainy night. The next morning, undaunted, with umbrellas in hand, we toured the city—a crowded mix of towering skyscrapers, historic shrines and Ginza, a well-heeled shopping district.
We traveled with an American tour led by a Tokyoite, Yukiko. She carried a sparkly telescopic flagpole to make her easy to spot among the crowds as we followed her to the Imperial Palace East Gardens, now part of the Royal Palace and home to Japan’s Royal family.
We breathed in incense at the spectacular red-and-gold Senso-ji Buddhist temple and enjoyed a delicious lunch of noodles with scallops and shrimp seared on a grill right at our table.
On our third day we had our first peek of cherry blossoms across from Tokyo National Museum. The tree branches, dark and heavy from the rain, showered a pedestrian walkway in the city’s popular Ueno Park with brilliant blooms.
And, hooray! The sun was coming out. The flowers’ falling pink petals would soon carpet much of the journey ahead.
TOUR GUIDE Yukiko takes us to Shirakawa-go, a traditional village that is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Leaving Tokyo by motor coach, we had a brief stop to view Mount Fuji (hidden behind a cloud) and spent the night at a mineral hot springs spa and traditional inn decorated with tatami (straw) mats and sliding doors made of paper.
Rested and refreshed the next day we boarded a bullet train and sped toward Takayama, a picturesque town that once provided a safe haven for the shogun, who held its dynasty in this mountain retreat for centuries. Its historic district is lined with wooden merchant houses that date back to the 1600s, preserved teahouses and sake breweries.
More history of the shogun rulers, romanticized as of late in movies and TV, was at our next stop, Kanazawa, where much of the world’s gold leaf is still manufactured.
Next was Kyoto, which lived up to its 1,000-year-old history as the Imperial City (before the capital was moved to Tokyo in 1869).
We walked around a lake at the sparkly Golden Pavilion and visited Kenrokuen Garden, which dates to 1676; its ponds, waterfalls and flowers sprawl 25 acres.
GEISHAS can be seen in the Gion District in Kyoto.
Geishas are few in number these days but can still be seen in colorful kimono in Kyoto’s Gion District as they make their way in the early evening through a maze of streets and alleyways to waiting customers. Back at our hotel, the modern world came back into view when a robot (that looked very much like R2-D2) rode the elevator and rolled along the floors to make room-service calls.
Back on the train to Hiroshima, we disembarked from a city bus at the “Atomic Bomb” stop, in front of the skeletal Genbaku Dome, a multistory shell of a building and the only structure to survive the atomic bomb that was dropped on the city Aug. 6, 1945.
We visited the nearby Peace Memorial Park and Museum, where photos of bomb victims hang in the galleries and history is told of what led up to the bomb and its aftermath. It was possibly the most crowded, and certainly the most sobering venue on our trip.
A ferry ride to nearby Miyajima Island provided welcome relief, with sea breezes and vistas of the magnificent orange Great Tori Gate and the Itsukushima Shrine. First built in the 12th century, the temple is dedicated to goddesses of seas and storms.
Wild deer roam the grounds, and large oysters are the local specialty.
Steeped in tradition, spiritual practices and nature, Japan is a wonderful mix of the old and the new, the sensual and high tech, with a mixture of romance and adventure making for an exotic trip of a lifetime. Especially when the cherry blossoms are in season.
Category: Real Estate
