As spring approaches, Japanese people wait in anticipation for the cherry blossoms to come into bloom. The flowering of the cherries, or sakura in Japanese, signal the end of winter and get people ...

Close encounters of a different kind draw hordes of foreign visitors to Japan at this time of year. It’s cherry blossom viewing season, and this spring marks the first since COVID-19 was downgraded as ...

Written as a pair of kanji for "open" and “flower,” the phenomenon requires a tree to have at least five or six buds fully unfurled to qualify. Long-standing custom had set April 8, the Buddha’s ...

To many Japanese and foreigners alike, there is no single image more synonymous with this country than that of softly falling cherry blossoms, or sakura. Although Japan has no official national flower ...

As we head into sakura (cherry blossom) season in the Tokyo area, Art Aquarium Museum Ginza has a new treat in store for spring visitors to Japan’s capital. Since previous iterations of the Art ...

I must be a bit forgetful, as the breathtaking beauty of cherry blossoms takes me by surprise every spring. Another surprise comes from remembering how ephemeral their beauty is. Poet Fumio Kataoka ...

The cherry blossom peak in Washington D.C. came and went in a matter of days. The National Park Service declared peak bloom on March 28 for the iconic cherry trees. But a thunderstorm that brought ...

There’s no better time to visit Washington, DC than in the spring when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. “When you are thinking about coming to the nation’s capital, the spring is one of the best ...