Cherry Blossoms, the life of a Samurai

At Wantage Books, the used bookstore in Kobe, two weeks ago we spoke with the owner. He has lived in Japan for a number of years in the country with his Japanese wife. He is a former teacher from England, a former editor of an English language magazine for the Kansai region, and now he runs a bookstore. The profits of the bookstore fund various charities in Bangladesh and Japan, which support traditional rural lifestyles in both countries. During our conversation he said that the cherry blossoms were like the life of the Samurai. Their blooms were beautiful but often short lived. The weather in spring changes rapidly and the blossoms will often be blown away shortly after blossoming.

We had this in mind when Jessica arrived. There weren’t any buds on the trees, but we were hoping that she would be able to see some of the blossoms while she was here. While in Kyoto on Wednesday, we were lucky. There were a couple of trees that blossomed. We ate a picnic near some trees and watched many of the people taking photos of the flowers.

All through the week we saw a scattering of trees beginning to blossom. Many of the trees had only a branch or two with blossoms. It didn’t look like we would see any views of rows of trees blossoming at once. Then on Saturday, we rode the train out to Nara. On the way through Osaka in the morning we saw only a few trees in any sort of bloom. However when we returned through Osaka that evening all of us noticed that many trees along the river had bloomed that day. The river was lined with cherry trees in blossom.

Now it is our hope that the blossoms will remain on the trees long enough for Christina’s parents to see them when they arrive in two weeks, but as with the Samurai there is no guarantee that the flowers will live that long.