Fine-Art Photography by Sara Letschert

For the last nine months I have been living and working in Tokyo. As a foreigner living in Japan, I feel extremely lucky to have had the chance to experience the beauty of Japan, the Japanese people, their culture, hospitality, amazing cuisine and nature.

Japan is a country with an incredibly diverse climate and four very defined seasons. Living here made me realize that one could hardly get bored of life, given that – every three months – things can change so dramatically in this place! And not only that: moods change, new seasonal delicious food suddenly arrive to the plates and the surroundings are entirely transformed.

Nevertheless, the season that really inspired me to post this blog was of course:  the spring time!

We all know that there’s something special about spring time all over the world but I find this is even more spot on in Japan. Spring is the most popular season here, and I believe it is thanks to the beautiful cherry blossom trees which is called sakura in Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら), that take over the whole country in the beginning of this season.

Today I like to share with you one of these magical spring days.

I beyond doubt believe that the beauty of the sakura tree is magical! Just by looking at them or walking under them literally transports you to a fairy tale world that is hard to explain in words. It’s finally the end of the cold winter months, the weather is nice and fresh, the green starts to come into sight and suddenly the most stunning and delicate flowers begin to blossom all around!

Meet Yuko! She is a talented Japanese girl, I adore. Her name in Japanese means ”gentle child” (優子) and that is what she is. Besides being sweet and gentle, Yuko is intelligent, honest, traditional yet very modern. Together we spend hours under the cherry blossom trees doing hanami (Japanese word that literally means ‘flower viewing’) ❤