If 10 days a season make, then it's cherry blossom (sakura) season in Japan. Parks and sidewalks I've given only cursory glances over the past five months have morphed into breathtaking gardens boasting gigantic cherry trees adorned with lovely mildly-colored and mildly-scented blossoms. Many older folks seem to feel truly passionate about Hanami (the celebration associated with sakura), a passion I've gleaned from listening to students cite metaphor upon metaphor for sakura as symbolic of Japanese culture/history/society. For your grainy enjoyment, a photo of one of the cherry trees in Kunitachi that annually inspires such Japanese cultural verve.

Finished? Ok. So, after viewing the trees, the true version of Hanami begins. This non-metaphorical celebration involves intense inebriation within some sort of undesignated radius of the sakura. This experience is best encapsulated in photos from a real camera, but for now, this will have to do. Where are the lovely sakura, you ask? Somewhere . . . behind us? Above us? In the dark? Behind that guy over there running around with no pants? Next to that young lass vomiting in the bushes? Across from the urinating elderly gentleman? Behind the huge piles of trash? Towering above the students playing drinking games and/or partaking in karaoke? Who cares?! Where's my box of wine?