Hanafubuki – Beautiful Sakura blizzards in Japan

Hello everybody!
Today let me show you one of the things I like the most about Japan!

HANAFUBUKI

You can say what you want, but to me this is one of the most beautiful things in existance.
It’s impossible to describe or transport its beauty through photos or videos. You HAVE to experience it yourself!

What is hanafubuki?

Even if you don’t understand a lot of Japanese it’s quite easy to figure out. Let’s split the word up! “Hana” (花) means flower and “fubuki” (吹雪) means snow storm.

So, “hanafubuki” literally means “flower snow storm”.
Why don’t they just call it “flower storm” you ask? To be honest it really looks like it’s SNOWING cherry blossom petals, so I find it quite fitting actually.
Often it’s also translated as “cherry blossom blizzard“.

Like I mentioned before it’s really one of the things you HAVE to experience yourself to understand the real beauty of it.
Yet I want to share some photos and videos with you that I took this week to give you at least an idea of what to expect.
I hope you’ll enjoy the photos!

For me “hanafubuki” is the best part of spring!
Standing under a few cherry blossom trees while the petals are snowing down on you feels like a pink dreamland!

NOTE: To see the small petals I recommend viewing the video in FULLSCREEN MODE!!
Here’s a short video I took. It’s nothing special but maybe it can transport a bit of the calm and relaxing spring atmosphere?
Don’t you just want to lie under that tree and have the petals slowly rain down on you?
There was almost no wind, so only a few petals came slowly down. Later on I’ll post videos with a REAL blizzard! ^-^

Staring up in the blue sky to see the petals fly is really wonderful, let’s have a look at all the other “benefits” of the beautiful hanafubuki!

Of course it’s also a great spot for doing hanami (lit.: flower viewing) where you basically have a picnic below the cherry blossom trees.

NOTE: To see the small petals I recommend viewing the video in FULLSCREEN MODE!!
A lot of people are enjoying the best time of spring! Sitting under the trees and on the pink petal ocean, having a picnic, talking to their friends. Fun times!

More and more petals are falling. There’s only a very short time frame when you can take good hanafubuki photos! Depending on the weather it can be only one day and then everything is over!
That makes it special all the more!

If it’s just a little windy, you’ll have the best setting! If it’s stormy you might get an awesome petal storm, but the trees might be empty the next day!

NOTE: To see the small petals I recommend viewing the video in FULLSCREEN MODE!!
It was just a little windy here, but it started raining.
That’s also what the people in the background are talking about. Ignore the Kansai-ben (= dialect spoken in the Kansai region of Japan: Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara,…)! *g*

NOTE: To see the small petals I recommend viewing the video in FULLSCREEN MODE!!
I took this video when a storm suddenly came up. It was difficult to hold my camera AND the umbrella, so sorry for the shakiness of the video. Despite the weather there were still people doing hanami!
Once I have some time and can figure out how to do it I want to make a “hanafubuki” video with nice music in the background featuring all the videos that I took.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the cherry blossom trees after they lose all of their petals? They turn green from all the freshly grown leaves!

Rivers of pink petals everywhere you go! I was really tempted to just throw myself into it! ^-^

This is also the best time for hanami! You need to be extremely lucky, though! The best time is when there are still enough petals on the trees, but a lot are snowing down already!

All your belongings, even your hair will be full of cute petals! ^-^
If you catch a petal with your hand or if it falls into your cup of tea or whatever it’s seen as a sign of good fortune!

Pink paradise.

Two seasons meet each other: Fallen red tsubaki (winter) and fallen pink cherry blossoms (spring)!

I’m totally in love with this photo. You might have noticed that all the photos have different weather conditions, but most of them I took within 2 hours on the same day!
The weather just changed rather quickly from sunny to cloudy to rainy + windy!
This photo was taken when it was slowly getting cloudier. The colors are beautiful! I didn’t modify the photo at all (other than resizing and watermarking it).

As seen in one of the videos earlier a real storm came up …

… producing even more fallen petals!

Close-up: Some insect is also doing hanami, huh?

A river of cherry blossoms.

Stairs to pink wonderland!~

Swimming cherry blossom petals have surrounded the innocent leave. Are they going to tease it? So mean! *g*

ThE eNd.

Please note that cherry blossoms don’t bloom everywhere in Japan at the same time. There’s the so-called “cherry blossom front“, so it’s important to know about it. Or else you might miss the peak of the sakura.