We’ve been getting a lot of attention for Ai’s 2008 Tokyo cherry blossom article, so I thought I’d write a quick guide to using Yahoo Japan and their hanami prediction pages. Yahoo has loads of great content for Japan, but navigating through the Kanji can be difficult. I always use their weather service, but this is the first year I’ve ever tried their sakura map. And now with the sakura in full bloom, choosing where to spend these precious days is important business!

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Along with the chrysanthemum, sakura (桜 or cherry blossoms) is one of Japan’s most famous flowers―and one of the most-loved. Also the flower embossed on the back of the one hundred yen coin, sakura trees bloom for all of around one week out of the whole year–even less if it rains. Every year, traditionally between mid-March to mid-April, explosions of pale pink cascade through the country, south to north, leaving a trail of delicate petal confetti. This fleeting beauty is not only appreciated but also celebrated in Japan, where people lay out picnic sheets underneath the blossoms to enjoy leisurely lunches. Called ohanami (お花見), the activity literally translates to flower-viewing and can occur during the daytime and at night if trees are specially lit. Yozakura (夜桜) or night-time cherry blossoms are stunningly picturesque―even slightly eerie―and are not to be missed.

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