Anna Matsushita

 Recently, the third week of September is becoming to known as “Silver week” in Japan. The reason is that there are two national holidays in the third week.  In Japan, a week with consecutive holidays in May is known as “Golden week”.  So the long national holiday week in autumn became known as Silver week, as an opposite to the Spring holiday season. 22 nd or 23 rd September is Autumnal Equinox. Yes, just as Vernal Equinox day, the length of day and night are equal. If we look from astronomical point of view, it is just another day. In Japan, Autumnal Equinox is known as Ohigan, when many people visit family grave and pay tribute to the loved ones. There are various articles on Ohigan on the internet, so I will refrain from further explanation. Around Ohigan season, you might see flower called Red Spider Lilly, known as Higan bana (literary means "flower on he other side of river leading to Buddhist heaven) in many areas of the country. It is bright red flower, l...

  Spring in Japan comes quite sudden. From chilly and gloomy grey winter, the season suddenly changes with many flowers blooming day by day. I have been mostly living in Kanagawa Japan and been through the change of season many times, but the sign of spring time is always delights to my eyes. During COVID-19 season, it was nice to see these flowers, to keep your attention away from the depressing news for a while. First flower which brings spring to my neighbourhood is Ume blossoms (Prunus mume, type of apricot) on trees.  The blossoms are fragrant, with sweet and fresh that you can notice while walking pass a tree. The blossoms are mostly white and pink. The fruit of Prunus mume is edible, mostly salted to make Umeboshi or cooked with sugar for jam. The second flower that shows up in my neighbourhood is narcissus. They grow in tine woods underneath the trees. We grow yellow narcissus at home as well. They do tell a change of season, telling that the cold weather will soon be ...

  One of the highlight of spring in Japan may be to see cherry trees in full blossom. Some may wonder why people make such fuss about. But you might get some idea if you had a chance to go through the chilly and cloudy days in winter and early spring here. Most of the cherry trees planted in urban areas in Japan are called Someiyoshino. The prime of its blossoms are quite short, about one week at the most. Once in their prime, the trees looks like hoisting a huge fluffy pale pink cloud. It is perhaps this short life-span of the blossoms which attract people’s attention. It is sometimes magnificent to see them under clear blue sky, probably because of the contrast of colours. Our office was located near a river in Tokyo called the Meguro river. The river is known for having rows of cherry trees on its banks. During springtime, the local community set up some lanterns underneath the cherry trees and light them up in the evening. The lanterns glow in soft pink, lighting up the blossom...