Hana-Mi (花見）

Hana Mi (literally, 'flower viewing') is one of the great cultural traditions of Japan.

Around the end of March, the Cherry trees burst into full bloom. They start in the far south, and move up Japan in a wave of flowers over the following week. So great is the custom of viewing the flowers, the Japanese weather agency publishes official forecasts of the specific blooming dates for each region. When the forecasters realised their prediction was out by a couple of days, they had to go on national TV and make a full apology, bowing and scraping in the way that only the Japanese can.

Sakura, the Japanese Cherry Blossom, is repeatedly fêted throughout Japanese culture, from the most austere of Haiku to the cheesiest of J-pop lyrics.

When those flowers finally emerged, it became perfectly clear what all the fuss is about.

The bloom is radiant and lovely, to a gratuitous degree.

WHY be that pretty?

Well, reason or no, the effect is wonderful, and manna to the soul.


The Japanese being one of the most civilised of peoples, they take the time to sit and watch the flowers, in viewing sessions known as Hana Mi. They have a long history; The Tale of Genji, written in the early eleventh Century, tells of flower viewing sessions much akin to Hana Mi.

Despite the traditions of Zen austerity that remain as one strand of Japanese culture, they are also extraordinarily good at enjoying the pleasures of life.

They do not just sit and watch in silence, in raptures of aesthetic wonder.

Instead, they get pissed.

Large groups, whether of friends, work colleagues, communities, sit on spread blue tarpaulins, and drink themselves into a flower covered alcoholic oblivion.

Keen to sample as much of Japanese culture as possible, we were keen to emulate our hosts example.

This was made easier by my discovery of a new, special can size of Asahi Beer.



A can of beer, bigger than an adult's head. God bless the Japanese.

At night, the parks of dense Cherry Blossom are floodlit and packed with revellers. Viewing cherry blossom at night is called 夜桜 (Yozakura); when a culture produces a single word to describe something, it shows that thing is important to those people (You may notice we don't have a single word for 'watching cherry blossom at night' in English.)

[Incidentally, my favourite untranslatable word is 'Uitwaaien' - Dutch for 'to walk in the wind for fun'.]

The week after our own Hana Mi, I was in Kyoto and found this beauty, its boughs heavily laden with blossom, standing strong and still, drawing all eyes to its treasures.
Sakura is not just famous because of its great beauty. It also holds a great emotional draw because of its fleeting lifespan. For a week, the blossoms grow. Then they stand, proud and brilliant in full bloom, for one week more. And after that, it is all downhill.
The blossom flies off in the wind. The ground becomes ankle deep in drifts of discarded cherry blossom.

A couple of weeks, and then it is all gone. Plain green leaves replace the bright blossom. The blossom on the floor shrivels to yellow dust.

In Japanese culture, the blossom is seen as the ultimate example of 物の哀れ ('Mono no aware'). Various translations exist, but it roughly means 'the pathos of the fleeting nature of existence'.

One week it is bright and brilliant, the next week it is gone.

It is a powerful reminder of the brevity of our time here.

So in the mean time, let's have a drink.

The Best Meal I Have Ever Eaten

The great surprise of the Okunoyu Ryokan in Kurokawa Onsen (see previous post), was the wonderful food. It now ranks as the tastiest meal I've ever eaten, and so is worthy of a blog post in its own right. Seizing the luxurious option of having our dinner served to us in our own tatami room, we arrived to find a banquet spread across our table...


It was like a Greatest Hits Compilation of Japanese food. And, as with all Japanese meals, the whole lot was served at once, allowing you to pick and choose whatever took your fancy.

First, light juicy Tofu, fresh, springy mushrooms, sweet pumpkin and sharp pickles.


A Mediterranean creamy salmon, fresh scallop, soft sweet potato, and a plum so sharp it sucked the juices out of your mouth.


Sashimi - raw, fresh fish in soft cuts that melt in your mouth.


Salmon sashimi - with sliced spring onion, grated daikon (Japanese radish), and enough wasabi to blow your nose off.


Light, fluffy Tempura - essentially fried vegetables and seafood, but unlike any frying we know in England. Juicy but not damp, succulent but not chewy, and lightly dusted with seasonings.


Beef sashimi - raw, succulent; simply floated away as you chewed, and you floated with it. The best of the lot.


And then, a light touch of novelty.

Resting on a small, iron stove, a wire basket cups a single portion of Nabe - Japanese vegetable stew. With a click lighter, you set the little paraffin tub burning, and let it heat your stew as you picked your way through the many, many dishes. Just as the paraffin ran out and the stew came to the boil, it was perfect for eating. Of course the vegetables were super fresh and delicious, but the soup was unbelievable. The thick, floating gobbets of pork fat (that us westerners would feel obliged to cut off and throw away) saturated the juice would a beautiful, heady, soft flavour.

And then, the final, gratuitous, course. When you're already so full that you can't even eat the soft, fluffy rice that arrived Chinese-style at the end of the meal, well, you always have space for dessert, right?


Absolutely stuffed.



Two of the simplest, most powerful pleasures in life; beautiful food, and powerfully hot baths.

It made me smile a lot.

My search for The Best Bath in Japan II

Great Baths of Japan - Kurokawa Onsen - Shinmeikan

Far inland, in the mountainous regions around Mount Aso (the largest volcanic caldera in the world), there are a few small villages that take full advantage of the natural geothermal activity. Unlike the neon-trash onsen towns like Beppu on the East coast, all cheap bars and tourist traps, they are quiet, green, and exist for only one purpose - onsen.

And these onsen are special. Travelling with my girlfriend, we splashed out on a night of luxury in a fancy ryokan called 奥の湯 (Okunoyu - roughly, 'the hot water deep inside'). I normally tour on a budget - hostels and cheap hotels etc etc. But this place actually sent a van down to pick us up from the coach stop. And carried our luggage upstairs for us. And served us dinner in our room. Not used to such things...

Well, the star attraction of this ryokan was the steaming rotemburo, built from rough rocks on the edge of a cool, flowing, tree-lined river. We sat and soaked, listened to the running water, looked at the trees. There's actually not a lot you can do in a bath. Which is perhaps their greatest advantage over Outside-Bath Life.

And that is how our lives divided for our 24hours in Kurokawa Onsen. Intense periods of In-Bath Living, followed by recuperative periods of Outside-Bath Existence, necessary to unprune your skin and cool your core body temperature to below 60 Celsius.

But a further novelty bath awaited us. The Shinmeikan Ryokan is extremely popular, but going at lunchtime allowed us to avoid the crowds and have it to ourselves. This place put the normal Rotemburo experience right on its head (not that the Rotemburo experience is ever that normal). Rather than go indoors to get changed, before proceeding naked to the great outdoors, here you got naked outside, before heading inside. Lacking the usual ryokan dressing gowns, the trip to the onsen necessitated a naked scamper along the pathway (this photo was taken from the (extremely public) street, across the river).

Once you walked through the dark, imposing entrance, you find yourself in a steam-filled, ill-lit tunnel. Your clothes are getting damp from standing in a hot cloud, and your skin starts to sweat from the heat. Jeans and T-shirt stuffed into a wicker basket, and you step into the bath and begin to wade, half-blind, hoping not to trend on anyone or anything. Not sure on the etiquette for holding your arms out before you when blind in a bath...

And so we sat, fortunately alone. In a bath. In a cave. By a river. In Japan.

I'd particularly recommend this to mid-bath singers - great acoustics in a cave.

Even I sang. And that really doesn't happen everyday.


N.B. As with previous Best-Bath-Hunt post, I'd always opt for the rubber duck over the camera as a bath-time plaything. And so, appreciations to the internet for its copyright-free bounty (ie not my pictures).

My search for The Best Bath in Japan I

温泉(ONSEN) - (n.) One of Japan's great contributions to human civilisation. Due to its high level of subterranean thermal activity, hot water naturally bubbles up all over the place. Put that hot, mineral-rich water in a bath, and you have an Onsen.

露天風呂(ROTEMBURO) - (n.) The Onsen taken to another level of perfection - outside bathing.

NB. Due to the suicidal nature of mixing digital photography and hot water, I've been forced to turn to the generosity of the internet for these photos...

Great Baths of Japan - Sakurajima - Furusato Onsen


On the far southern tip of what could be called mainland Japan, Sakurajima sits, smoking belligerently. A large and very active volcano, it sporadically sends vast clouds of smoke and ash rolling up into the atmosphere. It used to be an island, but in 1914 a great eruption spilled enough lava to connect it to Kyushu.

As the lumpen black rocks boulder down to the sea, geothermally heated water bubbles up to the surface. And right between this great volcano and the Pacific Ocean, this water feeds a very unusual onsen.

In such a unusual and powerful location, it makes perfect sense that it became the site of a Shinto shrine (the native religion of Japan). From the overhanging cliff, the roots of an ancient tree drop down into mid-air, with heavy black boulders caught awkwardly in its crooked roots hanging over the water. In the crevice underneath this natural mobile, statues stand vigil barely a foot from the water. You can wade right up to them, put your head under the cobwebbed roots and brutal boulders, stand in their shade and hope they don't fall. Certainly one of the strangest temples I've ever been in. Out of respect for the shrine, you have to wear a Yukata (Japanese dressing gown) in the bath.

As I lay back in the steaming hot waters, English places of worship seemed a very long way away. How could I even compare the hard, drafty pews of ascetic Protestantism to this balmy experience. Of course, Japanese religion certainly can do ascetic - think Zen monks up at dawn to meditate, with a Master hitting them with sticks whenever they showed signs of drooping, or a Shugendo Monk (allied to Shinto) meditating for hours under a freezing waterfall. But Shinto seems, on the whole, to be rather more keen on appreciating the good things of life.

With your back to the shrine, the Pacific Ocean spreads out before you. When I was there, the rain was heavy, the wind cold, and the waves strong. They crashed onto rough rocks with a huge weight, rendering the 'no swimming' signs rather unnecessary. I took turns between immersing myself in the hot waters until they proved unbearable, and then standing out on the rocks and feeling the heat drain from my skin in seconds. Then back in the water for another 5minute soak. Repeat until beaten by the elements into a heady state of relaxation, as you watch the seabirds fly overhead and listen to the waves barely 5m away.

Two great black rocks lie between the sea and the bath, and between them is strung a thickly twisted rope, on which is hung heavy paper flashes in a lightning design. It combines all the great Shinto elements - water, rock, wood, paper, rope. Only one thing was missing - and then, in the sinking gloom, they lit the braziers, and we bathed by firelight.