The Sakura Diaries, part 1

In search of Japan’s elusive cherry blossom

Hello from Kyoto!

For a while, I was worried that we might miss Japan’s cherry-blossom season. Watching the sakura forecast, I’d learned that it was looking set to bloom early due to an unseasonably warm spring (I think we should stop using phrases like ‘unseasonably warm’ now; it feels a lot like avoiding saying ‘the seasons are screwed by global warming’). But on Monday afternoon, winding our way through the Tokyo traffic in an airport taxi, it was clear that a correction was taking place. The city was dark grey, drenched in fog, and not a blossom in sight. 

After claiming he didn’t need to sleep for the entire flight, Bert spent the ride slumped on my shoulder. I used my spare arm to stop his head from nodding forward. It was not comfortable, but it kept me awake. I’d managed to close my eyes for a solid five hours on the plane, but that’s not the same as sleep. I don’t know if I’ll ever come to terms with being airborne. Every time I drifted off, I would jolt awake again, feeling as though I was falling. On reaching our apartment, Bert managed to climb the stairs, get into bed, claim vehemently that he was going to stay up so that we could go out for dinner, and then fall asleep again. It was 5pm. The night was young. H went around the corner to buy hot bao buns at the 7-Eleven, and then we both fell asleep too. 

The next morning, we all felt a little more human. We made toast and drank bottles of cold green tea (which will take some getting used to for breakfast), and made our way over to Ueno Park in the hope of seeing both art (Ueno is awash with museums) and blossom. Two things made this difficult. Firstly - and this is longstanding - H has damaged the tendon in his right foot, which means he’s not really supposed to be walking around on it at all. He has shown an admirable commitment to this up until now, but there’s pretty much no point in flying all the way to Japan just to sit in your hotel all day. So he’s negotiated two options with his podiatrist: a rigid boot, which is clunky and uncomfortable and only really allows an hour’s grace; and a pair of crutches, which he ordered from Amazon without looking properly, only to find that they’re covered in pink flowers. He doesn’t particularly mind, but a certain kind of man likes to point at them and laugh. Crutches or no, he can’t get very far, very fast.