Every February, Ushi-Tenjin Kitano Jinja (shrine) holds a koubai (red plum blossom) festival to celebrate the blooming ume (Japanese plum) trees that grow around the shrine. Last weekend, a friend and I hopped a train to Bunkyo to check out the festival, and the early blooms.
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Makuyama, Blooming Trees, and Soft Serve: Yugawara’s Ume Festival
Last weekend (February 26), I headed south to the town of Yugawara, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to climb a mountain and attend an ume matsuri–a festival dedicated to the blooming plum tree blossoms (known as ume in Japanese).
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