A World in White and Pink - Hanami, at Last...

07 April 2009

After being in a half-open state for almost two long weeks, the cherry blossoms were finally officially "mankai", or fully open, last weekend. As a consequence of the rather prolonged period between first flowers and the trees being in full bloom, the blossom has not turned out quite as sumptuous as last year; some of the flowers that came out early were torn down by the wind before the rest even opened, and once it got warmer towards the end of last week the leaves started to sprout immediately, scattering the white clouds with green patches.

So even though I was not quite as enchanted as last year, when the trees were in full bloom within days, all at the same time, staying in perfect shape for a whole week or so (I think we were very lucky, indeed…), cherry blossom is still a very beautiful and most enjoyable experience. The city literally lights up – not just the trees, which are illuminated at night, also people in the streets just seem to be in a cheerful mood.

We are lucky enough to live literally right in the middle of a popular "hanami" spot, and the area suddenly became very lively with people coming to view the cherry tree alleys surrounding our apartment block. As you usually don’t hear that many voices around here, it was really nice to step out of the door and be welcomed by a soft tone of chatting and laughing (and snapping of cameras). It was so nice in fact that we decided to enjoy our hanami picnic/brunch on one of the benches put up under the trees right outside our house, rather than going to one of the parks.

During Sakura ("cherry blossom") season everything turns into a world of white and pink - the flowers themselves are white, but pink clearly dominates the decoration, the food, people dress and style up in pink, and even some of their little doggies wear pink (yes, people here dress their dogs, just as babies, but that’s a whole different story…). Anyway – I, too, was carried away by the Sakura hype, and couldn’t resist buying some flower deco and a few cardboard cups and plates with cute little pink blossoms on them for our picnic. And, most importantly, I prepared some matching food, in form of a very rich muesli with some wonderfully ripe and tasty strawberries in it, which gave the whole thing the right seasonal touch (not only colour-wise).

My "luxury" muesli also contained all sorts of other delicacies, including pine seeds, raisins and toasted almonds. One of the reasons I like muesli so much is not the cereals as such, but the fact that you can add plenty of nuts and seeds to your liking… Apart from living out my weakness for nuts, it occurred to me that I could season the apple I was planning to add with ginger, which turned out to be a fantastic idea, as long as you get the dosage right and the ginger doesn’t dominate - in this case the super-tasty strawberries could well live up to the flavour. Simon certainly liked it (there can hardly ever be too much ginger for him…). Simply filled into handy tupper boxes, the muesli was a perfect addition to our hanami picnic...