Sakura Pilgrimage to Mt Yoshino

The sakura season is almost over in Tokyo, but I’m still in that mood.  Maybe, a sort of sakura DNA that had been hidden in my mind is now awake.  Last weekend, I went all the way to Yoshino in Nara prefecture to see “the best sakura” in Japan. 

There is an expression to describe the mesmerizing scenery in Yoshino; “Hitome senbon,” means that you can see a thousand trees at a glance.  At first, I thought it was just an exaggeration, but soon it turned out to be literally true.

There are thirty thousand cherry trees, of around 200 different kinds.  In colors subtly graded from white to pink, cherry blossoms cover path after path, valley after valley, veiling all the mountains.

Mt Yoshino has been a site for religious training for monks for over a thousand years.  Mountains are deep and the paths are steep.  It’s not easy to climb up and I had to take rests again and again.  However, whenever I stopped, different vistas of sakura opened out.  It was breathtaking and filled me with joy.  

 Saigyo, the twelfth century Buddhist priest, lived  in Mt Yoshino for three years.  He wrote the following poem.

Hopefully, may I die

Under cherry blossoms in spring,

In the month of "Kisaragi"

Around the time of the full moon.

*Translation http://dharmaechoes.blogspot.jp/2010/04/heart-in-spring.html?view=flipcard

願わくば花の下にて春死なむ

その如月の望月の頃

I adore Saigyo, but I don’t have the same thought because it’s a bit too early for me to imagine my last day in this world.  Instead, I thought of coming back to Yoshino next year.  Hopefully, even the year after next, as well.

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Spring scenes at Kujukurihama beach

One of the places that I long to go in spring is Kujukurihama beach in Chiba.  Having been raised in Chiba prefecture, beach means Kujukurihama and spring comes around with the taste of fresh seafood.  The slightly bitter flavor of sazae shellfish grilled in its own shell is my favorite. 

Kujukurihama is located on the east side of the Boso peninsula.  It stretches 66 km long in total in a sweeping curve along the Pacific Ocean.  Fortunatelly, when I visited, very few people were there.  As I watched the waves coming in and out and heard them broke, I felt really liberated. 

There are many seafood stalls along the beach in Kujukuri-cho.  We went to one of them and had a superb lunch.  It may come as a surprise, but when I was an elementary school student, children were able to buy grilled sazaes with their pocket money and my memories of spring school picnics are full of soy sauce flavored sazaes. 

The entrance of Pore Pore, French style inn and restaurant.

After enjoying fresh sazaes, we got on Kujukuri beach line, a comfy highway that runs just beside the beach and went to Kazusa Ichinomiya.  The reason why we dropped by that town is there is a tiny lovely auberge (French style inn and restaurant) that we want to stay for our summer holidays and we just wanted to look it over beforehand.

When we had a cup of coffee, the owner of the café suggested us to go to a lighthouse.  Lighthouse?  I never heard the word for ages and it made me feel something nostalgic and fluttering as well.

The Daitousaki lighthouse on a hill was much more than I expected.  It looked out over both the sea and the town.  Its panoramic view was breathtaking. 

I went on a trip overseas every chance I got when I was younger.  On the other hand, I didn’t know much about domestic places.  Day trips visiting places nearby is not bad.  It’s more like new experiences.  I think it was a shame for me not to have visited them much earlier.

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