It’s a cross country adventure taking us from the lowlands of the Kanto, Tokyo region to the highlands of the Japanese Alps of Yamanashi, Nagano, Niigata, then into snow monkey park, and back to the Pacific Ocean side of Japan where we visit Mt. Fuji, the Fuji Five Lakes, and Hakone before returning to Tokyo.  The current spring and Essence of Autumn photo tour routes are similar, and I have been exploring them for over 25 years, so my team and I know them like the back of our hands.  Having just one route would be foolish!  We could miss the entirety of the sakuras’ full bloom, as most run of the mill tour companies do.  But if you do happen, to travel with a run of the mill tour company, or a non-local Japan photo tour company and come across the perfect cherry blossoms from their pamphlets or advertisements with their timing, I would run out and buy a lottery ticket, because you will never have a luckier day.

Next year or the following one, I will include another cross country Cherry Blossom photo workshop into the Tohoku region.  This cherry blossom photo workshop will run about two weeks after my regular cherry blossom photo workshop, specifically the Morioka region, Aomori, and Akita prefecture.   Akita is home to Kubota Castle, a historic samurai castle that was part of a land bequest by Tokugawa Ieyasu to Satake Yoshinobu in 1602.  The castle was completed in 1604, and as the grounds were planned, over 1,000 cherry blossom trees were planted, and these ancient cherry blossom trees remain there to this day.  During the bloom, there are traditional Japanese festivities such as traditional Japanese musical performers playing shamisen, koto, and at times dancers such as geisha taking part in the cherry blossom festivities, so when you join a JDS cross country Cherry Blossom Adventure Photography Adventure Workshop Tour, you are not only experiencing Japan’s perfect ephemeral blossom, you will also be experiencing authentic Japanese culture and with social distancing in the past, you can expect tea ceremonies will be held once again, and you could be sipping green tea and taking in the rich historical locations like Kubota Castle and other samurai fortresses across Japan while being entertained socially and Blain your photo workshop leader is an amateur historian so you will gain insight into true Japan historical facts and society.  The castle grounds and nearby park have three major varieties of cherry blossoms, the Somei Yoshino (Prunus yedoensis), the Higan-zakura (Prunus itosakura), and the much rarer Gyoiko blossom (Prunus gyoiko), one of the double blossom variety with far more petals than the Somei Yoshino five.  The Gyoiko blossom is extraordinary because rather than a shade of pink, the blossoms are a cream color, and depending on what part of their blossom cycle you spot and photograph them in, you may even see a green tinge to their many-petaled blossoms.  Many of the cultivated varieties are strong to the winter weather and because of their position on Japan’s main island, Honshu, they usually bloom later than their Kansai or Kanto counterparts because of their geographic snow country location.