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Spring and Hanami

Today I would like to talk about spring and hanami. Since the weather is getting warmer, there is a significant change in the environment around Japan. I am very excited about this, because spring is my favorite season. During spring, the flowers are blooming and there is so much color everywhere. Everything comes to life again after the cold of winter. In Japan, there is a specific culture of “hanami” or “flower viewing” in Japanese. This is where people go and have a picnic in a park underneath the cherry blossoms. There is usually food and drink too. For me, this is one of my favorite things about spring in Japan. We do not have this kind of culture in the United States. In the U.S., we have picnics and things like that during springtime, but it isn’t the phenomenon that it is in Japan.

I’m from the state of Indiana, and there aren’t really cherry blossoms to look at in the spring. We have other kinds of flowers, but there are no sakura trees. I really love to look at the cherry blossom trees and have a picnic with my friends during spring in Japan since I cannot do it at home.

In the U.S., we also aren’t allowed to drink alcohol outside in public places such as parks. This really shocked me when I first experienced hanami with my Japanese friends. Everyone bought some kind of alcohol and they opened it and started drinking it during our picnic. I thought maybe they were doing something wrong, but they explained that in Japan, it is ok to drink outside. I thought this was really interesting and it also makes hanami more fun.

The first time I experienced hanami was in Osaka. I went to Osaka Castle with my friends from university and we ate sushi and drank underneath the cherry trees. It was also really crowded. When it got dark, we also did fireworks in the park. It is one of my most precious memories from Osaka, and I’m looking forward to experience hanami again this year.

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