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Monday, May 07, 2007
Cherry Blossom Season

As luck would have it, we arrived in Tokyo in perfect time for cherry blossom season. The sight of pink everywhere was quite lovely, but even better than the sights of the trees was the festive feeling in the air. Everywhere there were cherry blossoms, people had set out blue mats to gather with work friends, eat lunch/dinner, and drink until they couldn't see straight. I love the permissiveness of the authorities on this - public drunkeness is not illegal, or even frowned upon, in Japan.
In addition to the hordes of (by mid-afternoon) slightly tipsy people were the food stalls everywhere. At first, I thought this may have been common, but my sister told me it was all just for the cherry blossoms. Each stall was generally quite specific - one sold frozen chocolate-dipped bananas, another dumplings, and another squid-on-a-stick (both my sister and M thought I was crazy to eat the last one).
More than even the food, I just loved the festival feeling. I can not think of anything really comparable in Canada, where so many people would get together outdoors to eat, drink, and merry, mearly because of a change in colours.

As luck would have it, we arrived in Tokyo in perfect time for cherry blossom season. The sight of pink everywhere was quite lovely, but even better than the sights of the trees was the festive feeling in the air. Everywhere there were cherry blossoms, people had set out blue mats to gather with work friends, eat lunch/dinner, and drink until they couldn't see straight. I love the permissiveness of the authorities on this - public drunkeness is not illegal, or even frowned upon, in Japan.
In addition to the hordes of (by mid-afternoon) slightly tipsy people were the food stalls everywhere. At first, I thought this may have been common, but my sister told me it was all just for the cherry blossoms. Each stall was generally quite specific - one sold frozen chocolate-dipped bananas, another dumplings, and another squid-on-a-stick (both my sister and M thought I was crazy to eat the last one).
More than even the food, I just loved the festival feeling. I can not think of anything really comparable in Canada, where so many people would get together outdoors to eat, drink, and merry, mearly because of a change in colours.