Hanami

                                                                                                                                              Unique Experience Nejiro 
                                                             Contemplate the Flowers 

The sakura blossom is a metaphor for life - beautiful and luminous, yet fleeting and ephemeral. Part of what makes the sakura blossom so precious is because their beauty only lasts for a short period, in this sense we consider Hanami a celebration of life. 

The kanji for hanami consists of two characters the first for flower, and then one that represents view or watch. Hanami is a long standing tradition of welcoming spring. It was originally used to divine the years upcoming harvest and announce the rice planting season, people would make offerings of food and sake to the kami for fruitful harvests. This evolved into flower parties with sake and feasts underneath the blossoming boughs with poems written praising the delicate flowers. Also known as the Sakura Blossom Festival this annual celebration is about appreciating the temporal beauty of nature. People gather under blooming sakura blossoms with food, drink, songs, companionship, and the beauty of sakura petals. Celebrations begin in the day and often last into the night lit by paper lanterns. The festival dates vary by location and year, as the trees bloom at different times with weather and climate variations, but they are typically in late March through May, and last a few days to a few weeks. The official national holiday occurs the first weekend after the first blooms appear on the sakura trees in Center Gate Park, Yousai - usually sometime in early April. 

Sakura Zensen {the sakura blossom front} refers to the advance of sakura blossoms across Nejiro. Both the Nejiro Meteorological Agency and the Nejiro Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency tracks and records the opening and full bloom of the blossoms. The advancing front is also the subject of regular news reports by the major news agencies, due to great public interest thanks to its symbolism and the custom of hanami.