Japan’s plum blossom season is here, and after-dark garden is one of the best spots to see them

One of Japan’s three most beautiful gardens gets even more beautiful with special ume illumination event.

Japan is currently right in the middle of plum blossom season. Though they don’t get as much attention internationally as cherry blossoms, plum, or ume (as they’re called in Japanese) flowers are also incredibly beautiful, and they come with the advantage of staying in bloom for quite a bit longer than cherry blossoms do.

That means that there’s still plenty of time to enjoy this year’s ume, and one of the best places to enjoy them is Kairakuen. Located in the town of Mito in Ibaraki Prefecture, Kairakuen is considered to be one of Japan’s three most beautiful gardens, due in no small part to the roughly 3,000 ume trees that grow within the garden’s grounds, representing over a hundred different subspecies of the flower which range in color from pure white to a deep, almost purple shade of pink.

As you can see in the photo above, Kairakuen is breathtaking at this time of year, and not only during the day either. With the plum blossoms now in bloom, the garden is holding a special nighttime illumination event.

Called Ume The Lights, the event is taking place on weekend and holiday nights, with the lights going on at 6 p.m. and lasting until 8:30 p.m. Though it’s still pretty chilly after sundown in Japan, the ethereal enchanting scenery looks like it’s definitely worth bundling up in order to see.

In addition to the garden’s Tozai Bairin plum forest, its Moso Bamboo Grove will also be illuminated. The area will have a man-made unkai/sea of clouds enhanced with projection mapping, adding a modern touch to the descendants of the bamboo plants which were originally transplanted here from Kyoto by the garden’s original owner, samurai lord Tokugawa Nariaki, to ensure that he’d have supplies from which to craft an arsenal of bows.

If you’re tramping around the woods at night you might work up an appetite, so there will also be refreshments for sale, which keep to the ume theme, of course.

For those with a sweet tooth, there will be steamed buns filled with plum-flavored sweet bean jam, or, as a meaty alternative, steamed pork buns with plum wine seasoning.

Ume-flavored ochazuke (rice with green tea poured over it) should help keep you warm, and there will also be sets of plum wine which allow you to compare different makers’ takes on the sweet alcoholic beverage.

And last, since in addition to Kairakuen being recognized as one of Japan’s three best gardens, Mito itself has long been acknowledged as producing some of the country’s finest paper lanterns, so there’s a photo spot featuring an array of suifu lanterns, as the local version is called.

Adult admission to Ume The Lights is priced at 500 yen (US$3.30), with a discount to 300 yen for elementary and middle school-age children, and kids younger than that get in for free. The event is going on now and runs on weekend and holiday nights until March 9.

Related: Ume The Lights official website
Source, images: PR Times
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