Ohanami! enjoy cherry blossom and chuhai?

It has been raining everyday since last Monday and it've been very cold. I regret very much I wash my long coat. I thought I would write about Ohanami, Japan's "blossom viewing time", however because of this long cold rain, most of the cherry blossoms in Tokyo have alreayd fallen. It was just three days of blooming, like a pink bomb.

Ohanami is a big spring event for the Japanese; in this season there are so many Ohanami sites on the Internet. This year of course there are some good blogs too. and they introduce good spot recommendation, famous spot, weather reports, good recipes (JP) for those Ohanami bento, Cherry blossom special sweets(JP), (AH I love this!) Cherry blossom goods(JP), live cameras etc. You can also find some good Ohanami English sites like this, and this.

I had an Oahanami party with my friends last Sunday.  I really enjoyed the full bloom of the SAKURA!  And of course we enjoyed a lot of alcohle too!!  We mainly we drank canned Chuhai! Chuhai is a kind of Shochu cocktail which blended Shochu + some type of Juice. In the last few years we've had a big shochu boom. Shochu is usually cheaper than Nishonshu, we usually enjoy it "blended with something", and it has fewer calories than some other types of beverages, and many people say thye do not get hangovers from shochu. Unfortunately because of this boom, the price of some shochu brands has risen drmatically. Mori Izo is sold by drawing lots at the brewerey (KURAMOTO). Whoever wins has the regular price sets at less than 4000 yen. But for other online liquor shops, the going rate could be around 35000yen or so!!. Crazy. Shochu is interesting topic, I will write more about it in a Japanese food magazine later.

By the way, during Ohanami I drank a lot of canned chuhai. Calorie is Suntory's chuhai, which has 50% fewer calories than the regular version. Very good stuff. Of course I could drink twice as much as usual because I don't have to w orry over the amount of calories. Ah! Now they has funny TV commercial. Please check it out.

Comments

[Wolf]

I want to be in two places within a year to see the cherry trees bloom. I've never been "back East" to Washington D.C. in the spring time. And I also would certainly like to visit Tokyo (and as much of the rest of Japan as I can afford to see) as well!

[Mari]

Hi Tamashii
Yes I agree, I love to watch pics of Sakura too. Japanese seems to have some SAKURA DNA?? ha ha ha. Sakura makes us crazy easily.

Hi ramil
I am always impressed your good sense for cover of blog at first.

Hi abraxis
Kirin Chuhai you liked?! Hmm which taste you like most? I like grape ftuit.

Hi nadhry
You seemed to enjoy your hanami with your friend. Anyway Suntory name from a founder.. ahh perhaps Toriyama?

[Tamashii]

Oh, I envy all of you. I just watched to some friends pictures of the hanami...
I would love to hear the wind flowing thru my hair, the sakura peacefully falling to the ground, and finally, a soul from the ground making its way to the top... Hehehe, quite inspired, just by looking at a picture!

[ramil]

it was my first hanami! the sakura's were A-W-E-S-O-M-E!
too bad there were rains this week, i was not able to enjoy them more.

those cherry blossoms lifted up my spirits!

来年の花見を楽しみにしています！

[BlogPetの「tokiokun」]

きょう、blog♪

[abraxis]

I got hooked on Kirin Chu-Hi on my previous visits to Tokyo.

Mmmmmmm. Sooo good and sooo economical! Hits the spot when beer or nihonshu is too heavy...

[nadhry]

Hi, I just found your site a week ago and i liked it. So where did you go for hanami on sunday? I really enjoy hanamis too and Last week I went to shinjuku gyoen, ueno koen and koganei koen. By the way i think there are some typos on this one (alchole & suntry = alcohol & suntory?). :)