It’s time to go out and see the ume.

Pretty much as soon as the new year starts, people in Japan start looking ahead to sakura season, and with good reason, as the cherry blossoms are Japan’s most famous flowers. They’re not the country’s only beautiful flora, though, and if you want to head out and see some breathtaking blossoms without waiting for winter to wrap up, we’re getting into the best time of year to see ume, or plum blossoms.

Plum blossoms tend to start blooming in late January or early February, depending on the exact variety, with colors ranging from white to soft pink to a reddish purple. And while you won’t find quite as many high-profile spots for plum blossom viewing as you will for their cherry counterparts, there are a number of great places to see the ume, even as day-trip excursions from downtown Tokyo.

For example, there’s Hana Biyori, a flower park managed by the same company that runs the nearby Yomiuriland amusement park in Tokyo’s western Tama district. Though it’s less than 30 minutes from Shinjuku Station in the Tokyo city center, there are roughly 200 plum trees to admire on the Hana Biyori grounds, with their flowers expected to be at their most beautiful this year from February 20 to 27. That timing overlaps nicely with Hana Biyori’s nighttime Hana Akari light-up event…

…and there will also be plum scents added to the outdoor bath Hana Biyori’s on-site onsen hot spring facility, Kakeinoyu, if you want to rest and warm yourself up after around while there still might be a bit of a winter chill in the air.

▼ Hana Biyori, by the way, is also right next to Yomiuriland’s brand-new Poképark Kanto Pokémon amusement park section.

Heading in the opposite direction from downtown Tokyo will instead take you to Mukojima Hyakkaen, across the Sumida River and a bit north from the Asakusa neighborhood.

Hyakkaen, which means “Garden of a Hundred Flowers,” was created by a merchant who planted 360 plum trees on the property in the late Edo period, and became a gathering place for artists and poets.

So though the Tokyo Skytree, Japan’s tallest structure and a marvel of modern engineering, can be seen poking up behind the trees, Hyakkaen retains a traditional feel, and during its Ume Fetival, which runs from February 7 to March 1 this year, visitors can compose poems to leave behind for others to read, take part in a relaxed tea ceremony (February 14 and 15), and enjoy watching traditional dance performances (February 8 and 22).

For those willing to venture outside the Tokyo city limits, though, one of the best places to see plum blossoms in east Japan is the town of Atami, on the coast of Shizuoka Prefecture.

Atami Baien (Atami Plum Garden) boasts 468 plum trees, but the even more impressive number is that they represent 60 different varieties. So not only do they make for an immersive environment of flowers, because the different ume have different blossoming times, the viewing season here is especially long. As shown in the video below, Atami Baien kicked off its Ume Festival all the way back in the second week of January, but the flowers are still going strong, and the festivities, which include events such as open-air footbaths and free amazake sweet non-alcoholic sake, depending n the day, will continue until March 8.

Compared to the other two locations, Atami is a fair bit farther from Tokyo, but it’s reachable in less than 40 minutes if you take the Shinkansen, and once you factor in the delicious green tea culture attractions that Shizuoka also offers, it definitely starts to feel like a train ride worth taking.

Related: Hana Biyori, Kakeinoyu, Mukojima Htyakkaen, Atami Baien
Source: PR Times, @Press, PR Times (2)
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, @Press, PR Times (2, 3)
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