Picnic baskets and sake are part of the scene. As the rice wine flows, you will observe drunks, mainly a harmless lot. Their worst offense seems to be using the world as their private bedroom and inconveniencing the public by hogging the seating on trams and trains. And there are noisier ones, perhaps less tipsy who suddenly spy a foreigner and insist on striking up an unintelligible conversation. For information about cherry blossoms, bulletin boards are set up in all train stations showing places, dates, and extent of blossoming.
Drawings indicate buds, partial blooming, half blooms, and petals falling.
We suggest a trip to Kosanji at Setoda where there are 700 cherry trees, returning via Senkoji park at onomichi where 10,000 trees bloom. Japan has over four hundred varieties of cherry trees. This princess was so named because, it is said, she dropped from heaven upon a cherry tree. Hence, the cherry blossom is considered to be the national flower of Japan. The cherry is extensively cultivated in Japan, though it grows wild on plains and in deep mountains in the country.