Above: Cherry blossoms at a shrine light-up in Otsu.

Cherry blossom season is winding down in the Kyoto area, but I have many more pictures to share. In my last post, I blogged about the cherry blossoms I’ve seen during the day. I’ve also been exploring cherry blossoms by night.

During sakura season, at night, the Japanese like to light up their sakura at temples, shrines, and parks--it's kind of like Christmas in spring. I recently went to Miidera temple in Otsu, Shiga, just northeast of Kyoto, to see its nighttime light-up of cherry trees. The cherry blossoms, or sakura, were in full bloom, and it was a clear, not-too-cold night—perfect for seeing the sakura.

Miidera has many wooden buildings--over 40, in fact--spread out on different levels of the base of Mount Hiei, on the border between Kyoto and Shiga prefectures. For the first twenty days of April each year, Miidera lights up its many sakura trees and lets visitors roam around the complex for free (many, if not most, of the famous temples and shrines in Japan charge small admission fees).

When lit up at night, the sakura trees have a pinkish-silver, silent glow that I can only describe as other-worldly. At Miidera, the trees were so bright and vibrant in the dark night, and the grounds and visitors were so quiet and hushed, that it felt like I'd stumbled into another world.

The most impressive part of the light-up was the sakura trees that arched over a long set of stairs leading to a set of buildings called the Kannon-do. The branches of very old, very tall sakura trees arch over the stairway, creating a cloud cover of cherry blossoms overhead. When you gaze up at them at night, they look like massive stars (that, or lit-up popcorn).

The cherry blossoms overhead were so mesmerizing that, as I walked up the stairway--which, on the side walking up, has no rail between you and the mountainside--I had to remind myself to watch where I was walking and not fall over.

After our visit to Miidera, my Kyoto-native friend took me to the nearby Biwako canal, which carries water from Shiga’s Lake Biwa to Kyoto. The Biwako canal was lined with lit-up cherry trees, creating another out-of-this-world view. Seriously, with the water steadily flowing and the silver-pink tree branches draped over the canal, I felt like I'd walked into a scene from a fantasy movie. Or a computer screensaver.

And my favorite part of the night? A shrine in Otsu that my friend and I came across, on our way to dinner. The shrine was right across the street from our restaurant, and was a wonderland of lit-up cherry trees in full bloom. The branches of the cherry trees were so long and thick with cherry blossoms that walking around the shrine was like walking through a cloud of floating flowers.

There’s nothing quite like looking up into the branches of a soaring cherry blossom tree and seeing layers upon layers of blossom-laden branches, reaching from the tip of your nose to what may very well be the sky. It's actually pretty trippy.
 
Although it was nearly 10 o’clock by the time we went there, there were still a handful of visitors walking around the shrine, quietly looking at the blossoms. There was also a very jolly-looking group of older adults, enjoying a late-night hanami picnic under the cherry trees. That's the life, my friends.

I have to admit that, after my visit to Yoshino-yama, I thought that cherry blossoms, while pretty, are not quite as beautiful as autumn leaves. But after seeing the quiet, still beauty of cherry blossoms at night, I am now a believer.

Bravo, Japan.

It’s my first cherry blossom season in Japan! Cherry blossoms are in full bloom as I type, this very minute, and really are that beautiful. Here are the things that have surprised me about cherry blossoms:

1)    They often appear more white than pink, at least in the Kyoto area
2)    The Japanese like to light them up at night, especially in temples and shrines, which gives them an other-worldly beauty
3)    From far away, they look kind of like popcorn
4)    They only stay in bloom about a week at the most. Because they’re so fleeting, the Japanese think of them as a metaphor for life.
5)    Cherry blossom trees don’t actually produce cherries. (Am I the only one who didn't know this?)

This past weekend, I went to the mountains to see cherry blossoms. Yoshino-yama, or Mount Yoshino, is in Nara prefecture, about 2 hours south of Kyoto by train. It's the most famous spot in Japan for cherry blossoms, or sakura. It’s a whole mountain just bursting with 30,000 sakura trees. When I went, they weren’t in full bloom yet—maybe about 60% full—but were quite lovely.

To get to Yoshino-yama, you take a gondola up the mountain.

The town of Yoshino is like any other bustling Japanese tourist destination—full of shops selling pottery, tea, and famous local goods.

Yoshino appears to be famous for its mushrooms, as a lot of vendors sold a variety of fresh and dried mushrooms, including shiitake, one of my favorites.

My friends and I ate lunch in an udon and soba restaurant overlooking the nearby cherry trees.

I ate sansai udon, which contains “mountain vegetables,” including root vegetables and mushrooms. It was okay--the quality of the ingredients were so-so, with stale-tasting udon, alas.

Yoshino sells a variety of sakura-flavored goods, including sakura ice cream. I ate this adorable bowl of sakura ice cream in a café overlooking sakura. It tasted sweet and tart.

Like the udon and soba restaurant, the cafe was gorgeous--surrounded by sakura trees.

As we walked around Yoshino, we even found a restaurant that sells sakura soba!

During sakura season, the Japanese like to have picnics under the sakura trees, eat, drink, and drink some more. They call this ritual hanami. It was chilly the day we went to Yoshino-yama, but there were still some revelers hanami-ing it up under the trees.

The next day, I wandered around my neighborhood, east of Kyoto. It was a warm, sunny day, and the local park was full of hanami action, including even a handful of food stands and vendors, in case you wanted to celebrate sakura with your very own stuffed Care Bear.

Children were running around, some of the younger locals were playing impromptu music with bongos and rattles, and people like me wandered around taking pictures of it all.

I stopped by the local shrine, which also had sakura in full bloom, and a few people sitting on the plastic swing set, chatting and gazing at the sakura.

A lovely end to a lovely afternoon.

Next post: Cherry blossoms at night!