The Cherry Blossom Forecast

Japan tracks cherry blossom progress the way other nations track sports — with dedicated television segments, meteorological modeling, and a term, hanami, for the ancient practice of sitting beneath blooming trees and staring upward. The Japan Meteorological Corporation issues a sakura front forecast map each year that sweeps northward from Kyushu in late March, reaching Kyoto typically around the first week of April.

I arrived on April 3rd in a year when the timing was perfect. The Kamo River was already lined with people sitting on the banks beneath trees in full bloom, picnicking under a canopy of white and pale pink. By April 5th the blossoms were at absolute peak. By April 9th they were falling.

This is the thing about cherry blossoms: the beauty is inseparable from the brevity. You cannot separate the one from the other, and the Japanese have built an entire philosophical sensibility — mono no aware, the pathos of transient things — around exactly this kind of beauty.

Fushimi Inari at 5 AM

Fushimi Inari is the shrine with ten thousand vermilion torii gates winding up a mountain, and it is perhaps the most photographed location in all of Japan. The photographs don't lie — the place is genuinely extraordinary. The problem is that by 9 AM, ten thousand visitors are trying to photograph each other against the same gates.

The solution is simple and requires only an uncomfortable alarm. At 5 AM, the gates are empty. Mist hangs in the cedar forest. The only other people present are elderly women who have come to pray, and the occasional photographer who figured out the same thing you did and looks at you with the quiet solidarity of the early risen.

I climbed the full circuit to the summit — two hours round trip — and descended by 7:30 AM. By 8:15, at breakfast in a small soba shop near the base, I could already see the tour buses arriving.

Arashiyama: The Bamboo Grove and the River

The bamboo grove at Arashiyama takes about four minutes to walk through and occupies perhaps half a kilometer of path. The photographs suggest a solitary, meditative experience. The reality, between 10 AM and 4 PM, is a dense, slow-moving human river.

But the surrounding area of Arashiyama — the Oi River with its wooden boat tours, the temples on the hillside, the preserved machiya townhouses along the approach roads — is one of the finest half-days in Japan if you leave the grove's immediate vicinity.

Tenryu-ji's garden, designed in the 14th century, uses a technique called shakkei (borrowed scenery) to incorporate the mountains behind it into the composition. Sit on the veranda with green tea for €5 and let the garden do its work.

Gion at Dusk

Gion is Kyoto's preserved geisha district, and it delivers on its reputation most reliably at dusk, when the lanterns come on and the wooden machiya facades glow warm amber. I watched four amateur photographers follow the same geisha for two blocks before a resident came out and politely but firmly explained that Gion is a residential neighborhood.

The back streets of Gion — particularly the areas around Shirakawa Canal — are quieter than the main Hanamikoji strip and offer the atmospheric evening walks the district is famous for.

What to Eat

• Tofu kaiseki at Tousuiro — Kyoto's light, refined cuisine centers on tofu prepared in ways that make you reconsider everything you thought about the ingredient
• Obanzai — small Kyoto-style side dishes, best experienced at one of the modest restaurants that line Nishiki Market
• Matcha anything at a Uji establishment — Uji, 30 minutes by train, is the source of Japan's finest matcha; the soft-serve ice cream requires no justification
• Ramen at 11 PM from a standing bar near the station — the least Kyoto recommendation possible, and completely correct

Practical Notes

Book accommodation six months in advance for peak sakura season. The city's best-value lodging fills before Christmas for April visits. A JR Pass covering the shinkansen from Tokyo is worth it if visiting multiple cities.