Spring always comes opening windows, creating expectations and making us dream of better days. Of course, it is also full of color and with lots of flowers, although with climate change each time they leave earlier and leave anyway, something for which the supposed bets do not help at all. eco friendly recently sanctioned by Brussels.
In Japan the arrival of spring is something very special. Every year they celebrate the Hanami Matsuria ceremony that consists of observing the arrival of the cherry blossom, or sakuraa term that may sound like you from your childhood because of the anime series of the same name and present in current songs like From puddle to puddleby Belén Aguilera y Samuraï, or giving a title to the song included in motomami from Rosalía, a delight, by the way.
This same philosophy of the Japanese flower festival that is usually celebrated between the months of March and May in the Japanese country has wanted to adopt it with respect the Malaga town of Alfarnate.
This corner of the Malaga mountains, where Frigiliana is also located, the town that looks like the Mykonos of Spain, is located in the Axarquía natural park and has barely a thousand inhabitants. He lives mainly from livestock and agriculture, his main crops being the olive tree and, of course, the cherry tree.
For 15 years in the month of June they celebrate the cherry dayBecause yes, there is life beyond the Valle del Jerte for this fruit and on the eastern coast of Andalusia there are other crops besides avocados and strawberries in nurseries. As this farm is so important for Alfarnate, in 2020 they decided to start celebrating their own flower festival that they named Sakura.
However, we all know what happened that year and how long it lasted, so finally its first edition was last 2022 and the second one takes place this weekend.
In addition to the plantations themselves, there is another reason why the town council decided to promote this initiative and that is that the Japanese community settled on the Costa del Sol, where you can have the best chocolate ice cream in the country, began to go every to the town every year to enjoy the cherry blossoms, thereby somehow bridging the distance that separates them from their country and traditions so symbolic and deep-rooted to the identity of the country and the concept of family from childhood. Of course, the residents of Alfarnate ended up accompanying them.
Among the activities proposed by the municipality on this special weekend are from workshops origami and oriental calligraphy, illustration, food truck of Japanese gastronomy and even a parade where residents of the town participate as models dressed in kimonos made by local seamstresses. And of course, routes to enjoy the landscape spectacular offering cherry blossoms.
Photos | Gtres
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