If you’re planning a trip to Japan, you’ve seen the pictures, done the research, checked the cherry blossom forecast, and planned your itinerary to make sure you see the best of the best at the peak of the pink. But if you spend all your time enduring the packed trains and the station staff with bullhorns and the slow-moving river of cherry blossom enthusiasts trying to get an unobstructed shot of the coveted sights…
you’re going to miss this…
and this…
and this…
Because this is the secret that everyone who lives in Tokyo knows:
the best cherry blossoms are the ones you don’t expect.
The best cherry trees are the bare, brown ones lining the street near the station that you trudge past all winter, then suddenly turn into princesses overnight!
They’re that awkward tree leaning over the the gate to the neighborhood shrine…
that tells you it’s time to nip in to see this.
They’re the exquisite blooms that surprise you in the rain, at a shrine not known for its cherry trees…
and the ones that zip past on the train, so you hop off at the next station and go back to find this.
Remember when traveling was something we did to discover sights and tastes and ways of doing things that were wonderfully unfamiliar?
What if we recaptured the joy of going to exotic lands by thinking of it as more of a treasure hunt than a big game hunt?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to see the biggest and pinkest—they ARE worth seeing—but keep your eyes open when you’re on the train. Look up from your phone while you’re walking around. Because your best travel memories might be of the delights you didn’t expect to see, not the ones you did.
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And if you’re looking for cherry blossom goodness that hasn’t been discovered by the masses yet, scroll down to Deep Dive #1 on the Seven Perfect Days in Tokyo page
And here are the other places I take my friends when they come to town
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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
Jonelle Patrick writes about Japan 