(Tokyo) The cherry blossom season is in full swing in Tokyo, where residents and tourists flocked to the parks on Thursday to admire the flowering, late this year due to a rather cool start to spring so far.
Many flower lovers met in the center of the Japanese capital to admire the branches of cherry trees bending under the pink and white petals swinging above the moat which surrounds the Imperial Palace.
“Cherry blossoms are so symbolic, they make everything around you happy and beautiful,” said Michitaka Saito, 68, explaining to AFP that he goes there every spring.
“It makes me feel like I’m off to a good start for the year,” which in Japanese companies and schools begins on the 1st.er April, Mr. Saito added.
For many Japanese, the blossoming of sakura trees represents both a new beginning and the fleeting nature of things.
PHOTO KAZUHIRO NOGI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
For many Japanese, the blossoming of sakura trees represents both a new beginning and the fleeting nature of things.
The Japan Meteorological Agency announced Thursday that the country’s most common variety of cherry trees, “somei yoshino,” was at its peak flowering stage, four days later than the average in Tokyo.
Although the agency attributes this year’s unusually late bloom to cool temperatures, it is also sounding the alarm about climate change, which is causing flowers to bloom earlier and earlier each year on average.
While the number of foreign visitors to Japan now exceeds pre-pandemic levels, many tourists were also enjoying the spectacle, like Kamilla Kielbowska, a 35-year-old New Yorker who planned her trip around the cherry blossoms.
“The show lived up to expectations”, it was “wonderful” and “magical”, she exclaimed.
According to Katsuhiro Miyamoto, professor emeritus at Kansai University, the economic impact of the cherry blossom season in Japan, taking into account tourists and festivals traditionally organized under the trees (“hanami”), will be 1100 this year. billion yen (6.7 billion euros), compared to 616 billion yen in 2023.