2010/03/26 - Nagoya Report
byfrancois

Thecherry blossom front is advancing into the more populous areas of Japan, and today the japan-guide.com staff is reporting from four locations around central Honshu.Scott looked into the progress of the cherry blossoms inTokyo, to the westSchauwecker went to bothHimeji andNara, and I was in the middle looking for flowers inNagoya.

Nagoya is not very advanced and most likely will not reach full bloom until next week. Nonetheless, there were quite a few people taking part inhanami.

Nagoya Castle

My first destination of the day wasNagoya Castle, whose flowers are only between 20 and 30% open. Entrance to the castle grounds is paid, so visitors who come to see the cherry blossoms may as well also enter the castle building. There are manycherry tree varieties planted around the castle grounds, some of which are early blooming and much further advanced than the regular somei yoshino type of trees.

I was able to get a good view of the general state of the castle's cherry trees by looking out from the top floor of the main keep. Unfortunately, the view points were obstructed by windows which made it difficult to get a clear picture.

Some of the best flowers I found were the weeping cherry trees (shidare) found beside the castle's west entrance. The cherry trees that lined the moat to the south of the castle were also quite developed and dense, and I suspect they'll be one of the best cherry blossom spots within the castle in the upcoming days.

Tsuruma Park

From Nagoya Castle I took the subway to Tsuruma Park, and when exiting the underground area I came immediately upon some attractive cherry trees. Even though it was the afternoon on a weekday, there was a number of hanami parties taking place.

The trees around the grove were 40-50% open, and since the lower parts of the trees were blooming faster the overhead of the party goers was quite dense with flowers.

Surrounding the park there are a number of public facilities, such as schools and sports areas. Many people were walking through the park to reach those buildings, which I imagine is an irregularly pleasant end to a regular commute.

There are many small paths that cut through the park along which cherry trees can be found, but the grove where the cherry blossom parties were being held was surely the best location in the park to find flowers.

Yamazakigawa Riverside

The last stop of the day was Yamazakigawa Riverside. When we wrote our report from Yamazakigawalast year, the trees made an impressive tunnel of flowers and I was hopeful that today I might also find the riverside in a similar state. However, today less than 10% of the flowers have opened on average, with many trees showing almost no flowers at all.

There are hundreds of cherry trees lining the riverside, and like last year I am sure they make for a great cherry blossom spot when they start to become fuller next week. Today I found that there were some spots in the northern part of Yamazakigawa where the trees were more developed than average.

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