Currently, I am leading my annual cherry blossom photo tour.  We are visiting Uedajo, a park that has been built around the main gates and watchtower of a castle that was completed in 1583 by Sanada Masayuki, a samurai leader known throughout Japan. The castle is historically important because it endured attacks by Tokugawa Ieyasu’s army not once, but twice.  There are over 1,000 cherry blossom trees here, mostly Somei yoshino, but as I have explored this region carefully as well, there are a few varieties and locations that I only share with participants that join my tour.  Moreover, there are some distinguished cherry blossom trees that I have discovered during my decades long adventures in the Japanese highlands in and around Nagano.  One particular cherry blossom tree is of the shidarezakura (Prunus pendula) variety and is more than a millennium old.  Every time I photograph it, I think about the samurai, geisha, artisans, and everyday citizens that pilgrimage to the same location and have enjoyed the sweet sakura fragrance and playful pink petals for centuries before I first visited this cherry blossom tree years ago.  Visiting and photographing it makes me think that I’ve integrated my experience into Japanese history, an experience I am happy to share with all my participants on my annual cross-country Cherry Blossom photo workshop experience.  My personal exploration of Nagano began even before the Nagano Winter Olympics of 1998, but that one event propelled Nagano onto the center stage of international tourism and still has lasting effects.  Today, however, I’m not in the prefecture’s namesake city, I’m venturing to some off the beaten path locations in Nagano to introduce my participants to ancient and breathtaking cherry blossoms.  Ueda is the center of several different hanami, or cherry blossom viewing locations, that are consistently ranked at the top of many local and international visitors ‘must see’ lists.  In fact, one location that I enjoy visiting has over 500 cherry blossom trees and boasts several different varieties: Somei yoshino (Prunus yedoensis), the weeping variety, shidarezakura (Prunus pendula), higanzakura, a predecessor species of the weeping variety (Prunus subhirtella), and one more than only blooms in this region.  It’s not considered a varietal, its name being awarded as a result of the timing of its bloom.  Sharing the name would reveal its location, and that’s a treasure that I only share with participants who join my annual cross-country Cherry blossom photo workshop.  But seeing these blossoms is a once in a lifetime, off the beaten path experience.  The type of blossoms distinct in this region are called ‘yae-zakura’ because of the amount of petals.  Somei yoshino and some of the more common varieties have five petals, so some inexperienced photographers think that all sakura appear the same way.  The cherry blossoms in this region are a dark magenta with plump, their petals exhibiting rich folds.  There are over three hundred different species of cherry blossoms in Japan, and I have tried to spot them all and pen them into my species journals.  In closing, the Ueda region is home to some of Japan’s most ancient and treasured cherry blossom trees dating back a thousand years or more.