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- Place
- Nara Park / Nara City
- Season
- Late March- late April
Various cherry blossoms with different flowering seasons are planted in Nara Park, thus visitors can see them flourishing from late March to late April. Our recommendation among them is “Nara no Yaezakura” with light pink-colored petals, which is famously read in a poem of Hyakunin isshu Karuta.
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- Place
- Miei-do, Toshodai-ji / Nara City
- Season
- Mid-April -May
In 1963 Buddhist Association of China presented the flowers to the temple founded by Zianzhen, marking 1,200th year of his death. The flowers are originally from Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, the birthplace of the high priest. It bears beautiful white petals, much like hydrangeas’, and can be rarely seen in Japan.
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- Place
- Hase-dera / Sakurai City
- Season
- Mid-April -May
Hase-dera is known for its beautiful flowers. It is elegantly decorated with 7,000 peonies of about 150 species, which was supposedly offered by one of Tang’s Empresses.
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- Place
- Kasuga-taisha / Nara City
- Season
- Late April-Early May
The visitors can enjoy wisterias splendidly blooming all over the shrine, including the famous “Sunazuri no Fuji (Ground-reaching Wisterias).” In Manyo Botanical Garden, or God’s Garden, 200 wisterias of some 20 species can be seen. Especially this year after the shrine’s reconstruction, the newly-painted red walls and the flowers should make a terrific contrast.
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- Place
- Ofusa Kannon / Kashihara City
- Season
- Mid May-June
This annual event in Ofusa Kannon (Kannon Temple) continued since 1995, allowing the visitors to enjoy 4,000 roses of approximately 3,800 species in Spring and Autumn. The temple’s treasures are also exhibited during the event.
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- Place
- Yata-dera / Yamato Koriyama City
- Season
- June -Early July
The petals of the flowers look similar to the round-shaped jewel held by Buddhist saints (Jizo). 10,000 hydrangeas of some 60 kinds are planted to cover the temple, in a tribute to its principal Jizo statue.
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- Place
- Shoryaku-ji / Nara City
- Season
- November
The ancient temple has been known for ages for its beautifully-colored leaves in autumn. It is also a birthplace of refined sake, and still produces shubo (literally “the mother of sake,” or yeast mash) in-house.