The Difference Between a Sakura Tree and a 1300 Year Old Sakura Tree

It's already past sakura (cherry blossom) season in Japan, but I thought I'd share where I went for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) this year. Normally I will seek out a place that has hundreds of trees concentrated in one area so that it feels like your in a sakura wonderland. Often these destinations have a sakura matsuri (festival) going on where you can buy sweets and savoury foods to eat while sitting underneath the trees and enjoying the view. However, this year was a little different. I decided I wanted to see a 1300 year old sakura tree. It was approximately a week before the regular sakura were going to be in full bloom and I knew I would miss them because I had planned to be out of the country.

1300 year old sakura tree on the left

This 1300 year old tree was a type of sakura called "shidare-zakura" and it blooms a little earlier than the standard sakura. It is so big that it needs wooden supports to preserve and maintain it.

It is located in Okuyamada-cho 奥山田町 in Okazaki City 岡崎市. It took a little while to get there since we had to take a bus from one of the city's main stations called Higashi-Okazaki. Then we had to walk about 15 min. along a narrow river to reach the tree. There were only two trees here and one small booth selling drinks and Japanese confections. It was totally worth the trek though because the sheer largeness of this sakura left an impression. It's so nice to see that Japan tries to preserve this type of natural beauty. 

As you can see, the shidare-zakura is more of a weeping type of cherry blossom. It stays in bloom for longer than the regular sakura, so if I were to go a week later, I would have been able to enjoy the blooming sakura trees lining the river that led to this location as well as the ancient tree in full bloom. I hope you can see from this photo the difference in size between the regular and the 1300 year old sakura tree.

The river; not quite in full bloom yet

 There was also a smaller shidare-zakura tree right beside the ancient one which was also beautiful.

Young shidare-zakura