(ENG) Discover the best places to see cherry blossoms 🌸 (SAKURA)🌸 WITHOUT overtourism!

(ENG) Discover the best places to see cherry blossoms 🌸 (SAKURA)🌸 WITHOUT overtourism!

Hello everyone. Welcome back to my channel, Power World. We are getting closer to one of the most beautiful and popular seasons in Japan, cherry blossom season or Sakura season. The Sakura or cherry blossom is this delicate flower in shades of pink or light pink almost going to white. It’s the national flower of Japan and blooms for a couple of weeks during spring. Yet, the blooming dates vary from year to year, depending on the weather conditions and the city you’re visiting. If you’re planning your trip to Japan in this spring, here’s the latest forecast published by the Japan Meteorological Corporation, JMC. However, this forecast is updated weekly. Therefore, I will leave you the website where they publish the updates in the description. And I’ll also be posting these updates in this highlight on my Instagram account. In this video, I’ll share some facts about the flower. its meaning, traditions surrounding it, what to do and not to do, as well as my favorite places to admire it outside of the areas that currently undergo over tourism. So, you can take them into account and have a one or two days stop over on your trip between Tokyo and Osaka to see these places. During Sakura season, we all want to get out and enjoy this beautiful flower as much as possible. So, it’s very common for parks, rivers, and cherrying spots to have a greater flow of Japanese and foreign residents. And even at work, it’s common for work teams to plan going somewhere after the workday to enjoy these beautiful flowers. In this sense, I’ll consider over tourism to mean areas that in addition to the regular flow of Japanese and foreign residents are experiencing a much higher flow of foreign visitors than in previous years. And this could have a negative impact on your cherry viewing experience. By the way, before I start showing you the places, I visited some of them without intending to make videos and I only have videos from my cell phone or pictures. So, I apologize in advance for sharing some videos in vertical format or only pictures. And I hope you still get the idea of how beautiful these places are. Let’s start with one of the most popular places to see Sakura in Aagoya, which is Suma Park. This park is just a 10-minute train ride from Nagoya station. And to get there, just take the line to Turumai station. And the park is just across the street. This park is one of the top 100 places in Japan to see cherry blossoms. And it’s also an incredible place to experience two of this season’s traditions. The first is Hanami. Hanami means flower viewing, although it’s specifically used for Sakura or cherry blossom viewing. One way to do hanami is simply to go and see the flowers while walking around the area. Another way is to have a picnic under a Sakura tree. You can bring a mat to sit in the designated picnic areas, and you can bring your own food, which you can even buy at convenience stores. If you want to do the picnic, I will recommend doing it on weekdays or early in the day since, as I mentioned before, this tradition is also practiced at work and it’s normal for one person from the team to arrive early and reserve a spot. Another tradition you can enjoy in Suruma Park is the Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival. This involves lighting up the trees at night, usually from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. so you can continue enjoying them. And you can find food trucks or food stalls where you can buy foods or drinks in case you didn’t bring any or if you want to try some of the typical Japanese festival foods such as these super long fries, karag, which is fried chicken, strawberry skewers, etc. However, nowadays you can find food like rice skewers, meat, and even more western style food like hamburgers or pizzas. We decided to enjoy this matsuri or festival by buying food from the stalls and finding a bench to eat. We even found the famous, which is a soft drink sealed with a marble. [Music] By the way, a custom in Japan is that trash is only thrown in the trash cans at the food stalls where you bought food. So, if you bring food from your hotel or Airbnb or from a convenience store, it’s best to keep the trash with you and throw it at your accommodation. We continued our hanami walk and saw some of the approximately 750 saga trees found in this park. The second place I recommend is also one of Japan’s top 100 places for Sakura viewing. This spot is located 20 minutes away from Nagagoya station and it’s Goja River in Iwakura. To get there, take the mated line towards Shinu Numa or Inuyama and get off at Iwakura station. Depending on which train you take, it will take between 12 and 14 minutes. And from Iwakra station, it’s a 6-minute walk. You can start your tour from Katsutoyo Bridge and walk either to the right or to the left and enjoy the incredible views. If you go during the two weeks when the cherry blossoms are in peak bloom, you’ll be able to see this wonderful show. By the way, this was one of the first places I visited, and the photos are from 2018, so my apologies for the quality. This river is 28 km long. However, the area between Yatsudogi Bridge and Hikota Bridge, which is 1.7 km long, is the one that lights up at night during the cherry blossom festival. Within this area, you can enjoy the main traditions. Some people do hanami and lay out their mats along the riverside, but the times I’ve been, I’ve seen most people only walking along this area. On festival weekends, you can find food stalls in Omatsuri Hiroba Square. Another tradition you might see is called nonburi alai. It means flag washing and is one of the oldest traditions in this area. The flags you see in the photos are called noi. This method involves washing them in the river to remove the glue used to cover the parts of the fabric that are in dyed. As you can see in the photos, it’s a tradition that attracts many Japanese and tourists. And this year, if you want to see no in action, here’s the schedule published by the city government since it’ll mainly be held in the mornings. If you want to see the festival’s details, I’ll leave in the description the link to download the flyer with all the information. Before moving to the next place, I’d like to share with you that you can also find menus alerting to Sakura season in many restaurants and cafes. You can try them as they are dishes or drinks that are only available during this season. Since part of the cultural significance of cherry blossoms is precisely that their short duration is a reminder that life is both beautiful and fleeting. Now let’s move on to the third place. Nagagoya Castle. Nagagoya Castle along with Majou Park is one of the top places to see cherry blossoms in Ai Prefecture. The castle is located 10 to 15 minutes from Nagagoya station. And to get there, you have to take two subway lines. My recommendation is to take the red line called Sakura to Hayodori station and then transfer to the purple line called Majou to Nagagoya Jo. As an extra tip, I recommend exiting through exit 7. Although, if you have already taken a guided trip with me, you know, you don’t need to worry about anything other than following me. I’ll do the planning of schedules, guide you through lines, transfers, tell you which platform to stand at to get on the subway, etc. My social media and email are in the description if you want more details about the guided trips. And remember that the tours are fully customizable. For example, if you’re coming during Sakura season and you want a Nagoya trip focused on Sakura viewing, we’ll design the ideal route for you to make the most of the day and see the best spots. Back to Nagoya Castle. Part of its importance is that you’ll find around 10 barities among the approximately 1,000 Sakura trees. This means that if you visit the castle during Sakura season, on the day of your visit, you’re more likely to find Sakura in bloom in one of these 10 priorities. As you can see in this video, when we visited the castle last year, some marities were already more advanced in Bloom than others. Up until now, the places I’ve mentioned were public and free, but the castle does have a fee. Admission fee is 500 yen for adults, and children in junior high school or younger have no fee. You can pay in cash by credit card or by cashless system using your transportation IC card like the Suika Basmo etc including Manaka. The admission fee allows you not only to see the Sakura but also to enter Hon Maru Palace. The main tower of the castle is currently under renovation and cannot be entered. Here during the Sakura festival, you can also enjoy the food stalls and we even found amazing souvenir [Music] stalls. On festival days, they also light up at night. And the venue also opens later than usual, so you can enjoy it for more [Music] time. And also on your way back, you can return to Hisaya Station, the one that I mentioned before, and you’ll find yourself in Hisaya Odori Park. Here you can see some of the city’s iconic landmarks like Oasis 21 or the Midai Tower. And here you can also find some Sakura trees along the way. Before moving to the fourth place, if you enjoy and find this video helpful, I invite you to give it a like, leave me in the comments which places in this video you would like to visit, and consider subscribing and hitting the bell to be notified of the next videos. I also want to thank you for all the support you’ve given me. Whether this is your first video or if you’ve seen previous [Music] videos. The fourth place I want to share with you is a little further away, but it’s totally worth it. It’s Inoyama City, specifically the castle and the Kiso River, which is the river right next to Inoyama Castle. To get there from Nagoya, take the mated line to Inuyama Yuan Station. I recommend taking the Muski Shinuma train which takes 30 minutes or the semi express Shin Ununna train which takes 37 minutes. There’s also another station before it which is Inuyama station. And you can also reach the castle from here taking a look at the city. However, for the purpose of this video, which is to recommend incredible places to see Sakura from Inoyama Yuan Station, you can get to the castle following the entire river bank, which is filled with these beautiful views. And taking advantage of these views, I’ll share some rules of Sakura etiquette. Among the things you should not do are number one, touch the flowers as their petals are very delicate and touching them could cause them to fall more quickly. Number two, shaking the branches to create an artificial Sakura shower or Sakura ami. This Sakura shower is generally created after the big bloom period when the flowers begin to drop their petals and it’s a breathtaking show. So sometimes some people want to create it by themselves. However, this also damages not only the flowers but the tree itself and could cause it to produce fewer sakura in future seasons. Number three, picking flowers or breaking branches to take them as a souvenir. This is not only a rule of etiquette, but it’s also punishable. The urban park law establishes fines up to 100,000 yen for breaking branches or picking flowers in public parks. In addition, the municipal or prefectural government could file a lawsuit under article 261 of the panel code, which punishes the damage of private property. And in this case, the penalty could go up to 300,000 yen or up to three years in prison. It may sound exaggerated or you might think, “How will they know it was me?” But remember that we are currently living immersed in social media and also that it’s best to follow the rules and create a good environment so we can all continue to enjoy the annual show of these beautiful flowers. Nonetheless, here are some alternatives. Number one, if you want a picture or video of you touching the flowers, you can simulate the action by bringing your hand or arm close to the flower, taking care to maintain some distance. It’s just a matter of playing around with your camera. Number two, for this shower, unfortunately, we have to wait for the trees to reach this stage. So, you could try to go to a city where the Sakura bloomed earlier, and perhaps they are further along in the blooming process. Number three, you can pick up the pearls or flowers only if you find them already fallen on the ground. Generally, what falls are pearls. However, sometimes strong winds or birds can cause some full flowers to fall as well. As these flowers are very delicate, I can tell you that it’s very difficult to avoid damaging them if you want to take them as a souvenir. But what you can do is pick the flower off the ground, take your video or picture and then return them to the ground where someone else can also enjoy them. And well, back to Inoyama. Continuing the path to the castle, you can also see several shrines including Haritsuna Shrine, home to the local guardian deity. In the surrounding area, you can also see many cherry blossoms. And after you finished viewing the flowers, you can go up to the castle and visit it. This is one of Japan’s 12 original castles and one of the five that have been declared national treasure. It’s a castle with a lot of history, but I’ll tell you all about it in another video dedicated to this castle. Also, if your trip is during the first weekend of April, you can also enjoy the Inujama Festival. This year, the festival will be on Saturday, April 5th and Sunday, April 6th. But Sunday, April 6th is the main event. Here I’m sharing part of last year’s festival to tell you that the festival’s centerpiece is the parade of 13 floats accompanied by the melodies of flutes and drums. The floats are crowned with dolls. However, at night they are adorned with 365 lanterns. This parade has been a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage since 2016. And well, I’m also planning to go this year. So, if you’ll like to see the parade live, let me know in the comments below so I can plan a live [Music] stream. The next place I want to recommend is where the city was located before Nagoya. It’s Kyosu and especially Kiu Castle. To get there, you can take two options from Nagoya station. The first one is via the AR line taking the local train towards Gehu and it takes seven minutes to reach Kiosu station. From the station you have to walk 1.3 km to reach the castle. The second option is via the Metsu line taking the Metsu Ichinomia Express train and it takes 9 minutes to reach Sinki station. From the station you have to walk 1.1 km to reach the castle. In my case, I took the second option and on my way to the castle, I could already see Sakura trees. By the way, on the map, you can see that the bullet train or Shinkansen line is very close. And it’s true. If you’re traveling from Tokyo to Osaka by bullet train, you can see the castle on the right shortly after passing through Nagoya station. And if you’re traveling from Osaka to Tokyo, you can see the castle on the left shortly before arriving to Nagoya Station. The castle and Kiosu Park are separated by the Gojo River. And as we’ve seen before, the river bank is the perfect place to enjoy the Sakura trees. By the way, Kiosa Castle is believed to have been located where Kiyosu Park is now. However, when the Shogun Tokugawa ordered the construction of Nagagoya Castle, he asked the population surrounding Kiu Castle to move and relocate to the area where the new castle was being built. Well, back to the current castle. What you can see in the front are mostly sand gardens, but in the back there’s a path of sakura trees. In fact, during pig bloom times, we found several food stalls and bought something to eat there. Once we finished our visit to the castle, which I’ll also leave for a separate video, we crossed the bridge and got this incredible view. And if you are a Giblly fan, tell me which movie it reminds you of. In the Kiosu Park area, you can find the official souvenir shop, but also other food stalls under this beautiful Sakura tunnel. Many people do hanami in this area. Although we again just walk around and took advantage of the incredible photo spots to take a picture of the castle with Sakura trees. [Music] Before moving on to the last two recommendations, I’ll share an extra place. I consider you an extra because the location of this place is further from Nagoya. In fact, it’s closer to Tokyo and it’s the Trayto Pagoda. It’s close to Mount Fuji. And to get there, you can take a bus from Shinjuku station to Jaman Nako and reach Chu Shimo Yoshida stop in approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. From there, you walk 1.5 km to the observation deck. But from that distance, only the last 600 m are the climb to the observation deck. And at the bottom, there are several shrines. If you prefer, you can climb the 3980 steps or take the path up to the observation deck. Once at the observation deck, you’ll get these beautiful views as this place has 650 sacred trees. Just one point to keep in mind, and that is to go on a day when the weather allows you to see Mount Fuji. This is because it’s not always visible. And also if you don’t want to or you cannot go up to the observation deck, you can also get a beautiful view like this from the bottom. This penultimate place is for nature and Shinto spirituality lovers. It’s the Isa shrine considered the most sacred place in Japan. To get there from Nagoya, take the Kintets line from Nagoya station. I recommend the Isushima Liner Toba which is the fastest route and after a 1 and a half hour journey get off at Isutsugawa station and the bus stop will be right outside the station. The Nikumaya bus stop is approximately 5 minutes away and it’s the closest to the shrine. At the beginning of the walk, there are several restaurants and souvenir shops like these incredible caramel lollipops with very detailed figures. And by the river, you’ll start to see the first Sakura trees. On the main walk to the shrine, there are even more things to see such as sake riveries, Sakura, and other plant bonesai trees, many crafts, etc. until you reach the Tori or shrine gate. From here you enter the shrine grounds where there are actually 125 shrines, not only the main one dedicated to [Music] Amatasu. Inside the shrine, you can find several Sakura trees of different varieties such as Sume Yoshino, Jama Sakura, and Edohhigan. Just like Nagoya Castle, different varieties mean that the period for enjoying Sakura blossoms is slightly extended, making this shrine the third most popular place to enjoy cherry blossoms in Mia Prefecture. Personally, although the Sakura trees are more dispersed here, you can appreciate them in a very different way. Seeing them among the greenery, they stand out for their color and give the shrine a unique touch. And if you like to visit Shinto shrines, this is definitely one of the main ones you should visit. Finally, I recommend the most popular place to see cherry blossoms in Mia Prefecture. This place is Nabana Noato. You may recognize it from my Christmas lighting video for its incredible illuminated tunnel. To get there from Nagagoya station, you can either take the semi-express train from Kintets line or the air line. And for both options, the station to get off the train is Nagashima station. Although the map shows a walk of over 2 km, from October to May, there’s a bus from Kintetsu Nagashima station that takes you to Noan Noato. During the cherry blossom season, the gardens open up a Sakura tree area with approximately 300 trees. The Sagra trees are divided into different passages of 200 or 120 m for viewing. Here during peak bloom, you can see about 50 trees illuminated at night. To enter Naban no, the ticket during the Sakura season cost 2,500 yen. However, the ticket includes a 1,000 yen voucher that can be used to pay for food at restaurants or to buy souvenirs at shops. [Music] And also you can get into this observation deck called Fuji Island which rises 45 m high and allows you to enjoy a 360° view where you can see both the illuminations from above as well as views of the city and Nagashima Park. The trip takes about 7 minutes and the movement is slow so it’s safe for children and seniors. to go up. The ticket costs 600 yen for adults and 300 yen for children ages 3 to 12. For this ticket, the official website mentions its paying cash. And well, I hope you like the recommendations. Tell me in the comments below which ones you like to visit. And from my side, this year I’ll be visiting new places. So, if you want to see them before I upload this video update next year, you can follow me on Instagram where I’ll be posting the places I visit in my stories and tag their locations. In the description, you’ll find all my social media links. Thanks for watching the video until the end. If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, please give it a like and share it with anyone you think might enjoy it. Also, consider subscribing and hitting the bell to get notified of new videos. See you next time. Bye. [Music]

Hello! Spring is almost here 🌸 and in this video, I share with you my favorite places to see cherry blossoms (sakura) without overtourism!

Day trips info Nagoya/Shirakawa-go:
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To check the latest sakura forecast: https://n-kishou.com/corp/news-contents/sakura/?lang=en
Iwakura festival flyer: https://www.city.iwakura.aichi.jp/cmsfiles/contents/0000004/4155/EnglishFlyer2025.pdf
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Chapters:
0:00 Greeting
0:30 Blooming date
0:51 Intro
2:09 Place 1
4:53 Place 2
7:07 Extra info
7:34 Place 3
10:07 Extra place-1
10:51 Place 4
15:51 Place 5
18:32 Extra place-2
19:46 Place 6
21:51 Place 7
23:47 Farewell

Cherry Blossom – Wonders de Kevin MacLeod tiene una licencia Atribución 4.0 de Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Fuente: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100382
Artista: http://incompetech.com/