The Diplomat
The Embassy of Japan in Spain has launched an initiative to find the flowery landscapes of Navarre that most resemble Japanese ones.
The initiative is part of the Japanese Cultural Spring, an event launched by the Embassy with the purpose of bringing to the public the traditions of Japan in spring, among which Hanami (contemplation of flowers), the custom of visiting parks, gardens, fields and forests in bloom when spring arrives. The Cultural Spring, which is developed through the Embassy’s social networks (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube), began last Friday and will conclude next May 31.
Within the framework of these events, the Embassy of Japan has invited citizens to send photos (through https://www.facebook.com/285282478226938/posts/3880123985409418/) of “those flowery Navarran landscapes that most resemble those of Japan, that is, where a Japanese visitor in Navarre can feel like in Japan”. The Embassy of Japan will publish in its social networks the most original photos, with the name of the author and the location of the photographed enclave so that it can be visited in spring by Japanese residents or tourists. To this end, it suggests that the photo be accompanied by a caption or an inviting phrase alluding to the spring landscape.
The online cultural events of the Japanese Cultural Spring also include Origami workshops, Sumi-e painting, spring music concerts, Ikebana, Bonsai, Washoku and many other activities, which will be joined by the posts that will be published in the coming weeks, which will be related to the Japanese spring and that can “serve as inspiration to find places in Navarra that most resemble Japan in spring”.
In this regard, the Embassy offers as an example of Hanami the Yamaguchi Park in Pamplona, named after the Japanese city with which the Navarrese capital is twinned since 1980. This large green area of 80,000 square meters, just ten minutes walk from the Vuelta del Castillo, was designed in 1997 by two Japanese landscapers and “comes to symbolize the twinning between Pamplona and the Japanese city that gives it its name, evangelized by St. Francis Xavier,” added the Japanese Embassy. This typical Japanese garden is a tribute to the four seasons and has 400 trees and more than 600 plants, such as Japanese cherry, ginkgo biloba, weeping willow, swamp cypress, maples, oaks, sequoias and holly trees, among others.
