Summer in Japan is hot and humid and most people find it stuffy and suffocating. With this kind of weather, most people take this time to travel to places with higher elevations or to go to the islands and mountains. This year we took the opportunity to visit Niijima again and we included a side trip to the neighboring Shikinejima as well.
Fireworks give life and color to the night sky. Fireworks display and events are held in various places in Japan throughout the year but most prominently during the summer season when the wind is gentler and the sky is clearer.
Spring is a beautiful season, it marks the start of a new beginning just like the many kinds of flowers that start blooming. When the season of spring commence, we also start to pick up the slack that the winter and snowy season installed in us. The moderated climate temperature gives us enough strength to explore and discover new things within ourselves and around us.
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Hanami which literally means “flower viewing” is an important Japanese custom and is held all over Japan during the Spring season. Said to have originated in the late 8th century during the Nara Period, when this seasonal event was used to welcome the new year’s harvest marking the beginning of the rice planting season. During the Heian Period, Emperor Saga together with the Japanese royalties would welcome this time with a celebration under the sakura trees in Kyoto’s Imperial Court. The practice spread to all citizens by the Edo Period in the early 1600s. The custom still lives to this day and thus became an annual tradition of enjoying a picnic under the blooming sakura trees. It is no doubt one of the more remarkable natural events in the country.
For this year, Tokyo indeed experience one of the earliest season of cherry blossom which is 10 days earlier than average and 15 days earlier than last year. This is mainly affected by the unusually warm weather in March which rose far above average, taking the weather services by surprise and resulting in a record-breaking early cherry blossom season in the capital. Cherry trees in the city have already reached full bloom and will likely be past their peak by early April. Estimated best viewing period is from March 22 to April 1.
Continue reading Sakura 2013, one of the earliest season on records
Hakuba, located in the Northern Japan Alps of Nagano Prefecture stands out as one of Japan’s finest winter resort areas. It is one of the most popular ski areas because of its thick snow, good terrain, vertical rise, and advance ski and snowboard slopes.
Hakuba hosted several Olympic events during the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and some of the Olympic facilities still remain in the area like the Hakuba Ski Jumping Stadium, Hakuba Olympic Memorial Hall, and Olympic museum which is a walking distance from the ski jump.
Continue reading Hakuba, Japan’s premier winter sports destination
