Princess Saho dyes Nara City pink

There are many rivers and canals lined up with numerous "sakura" (cherry tree) in Japan.

  The Saho River is one of them meandering gently through Nara City.

Princess Saho is believed to live in the Saho Mountain which is located to the east of Heijyo-kyo, the ancient capital of Japan in Nara.  According to the Chinese theory of five elements (五行説), spring is in the east. Princess Saho is a goddess of spring, a young woman clad in a soft pale pink spring haze.  She is good at dyeing and dyes hills and fields in spring colors.

Incidentally, autumn is in the west, and the goddess of autumn is called Princess Tatsuta because there is Tatsutain Mountain to the west of Heijokyo .  Princess Tatsuta is good at needlework and she changes hills and fields to the autumn-tinted brocades.

New buds of sakura get into sleep right after they are born in summer, get awake by the cold in winter, and start to swell to open when Princess Saho fly on the wind from the east.  The severity of winter doesn't affect the blooming time of sakura but the time when warm east wind starts to blow does. 

Princess Saho is personification of changing landscape from withered mountains and fields to richly variegated by rain and dyed in verdure and spring flowers.  Many people are forgetting her name while living in the city. 

The roads along the Saho make it a breathtaking place for a springtime stroll.  Yesterday I walked along the river from Nara Prefecture Library and Information Center (奈良県立図書情報館) to the upstream JR Line.

Before starting to walk, I was tempted by sweets and coffee for 500 yen.

柚子Yuzu (small citrus fruit) chiffon cake & ice cream

The sakura-lined paths on both sides of the river stretch about five kilometers.

I walked north, feeling warm sunlight on my back.

Reflection always fascinates me.

You can feel more wind by "Mamachari" riding. 

Mt. Wakakusa is seen from the Omiya Bridge.

Saho Elementary School will welcome new pupils in a week.

People were having a rest in the dappled shadow on the riverbed.

Toward the upstream, there are seen various different varieties of sakura from Somei-yoshino.

Somei-yoshino variety is noted for the pale pink petals.

I took this picture while waiting for the gate of the railroad crossing to open.



JR line

Princess Saho in the puddle of the asphalted path?

Strolling around in pink landscape would surely make you feel in the pink.

 

I wish peace on earth and in your mind.

- From the Land of Sakura -