Laura: Are those flowers what I think they are? Is it time for Sakura blossoms now? :D:D (See post 19 February 2009, Climbing outside for the first time)
Answer:
It is probably some kind of cherry blossom, or sakura in Japanese yes, but it is not time for the full blossoming yet. I read a little bit about it just now, because I am a little confused my self.
The Japanese Metrological Agency traces the sakura zensen (cherry-blossom front) every year, but their homepage was mainly in Japanese so I couldn’t find out about it there. The zensen is supposed to start in Okinawa (southern tropical island chain part of Japan) in January, come to Kyoto and Tokyo around the end of March and the beginning of April and reach higher attitudes and Hokkaido (northernmost part of Japan) a few weeks later.
So the full blossoming is probably something grand and wonderful that I haven’t experienced jet. These trees could be other variations of the sakura. For example winter sakura, which blooms in the fall and then continuous to bloom sporadically true the winter (maybe the few trees that have been blooming on campus since Christmas are Winter sakura when I think about it..). There is also something called ume “plum” tree, and the plum blossoming, and they look exactly like these flowers (I am just Googeling as I am writing), and are supposed to bloom in late January and February. So I guess I have found the answer, these are ume flowers!
That explains why the park looked like it did also. It was a huge, steep hillside covered in trees, and looked more like agriculture than a park just for looking at flowers. Still, they took a small admission fee, (to Shengs annoyance since they hadn’t done that the last time he had been there), and there where lots of people strolling the hillside, watching the flowers and the climbers, or having picnics. The tradition of flower viewing is imported from China, and up to the middle of the night century the ume tree was actually held in highest regard. The ume tree gives plum fruit that they use for food here. They pickle them and flavor them to be salty and sour, and you usually eat them with rice like this. They are called umeboshi when they are pickled.
They also use them for liquor, but that’s the topic of another post. They have all kinds of special liquors here.
Ok, this got to be a post in it self. I will file it under the Japanese culture category, that’s posts of all that has to do with Japan and how they do things here. The Japan and Tokyo categories are just posts about locations if anyone are confused. And oh, I will have to file it under food to. Everything has to do with food, its my biggest category jet :P
