Next year or the following one, I will include another cross country Cherry Blossom photo workshop into the Tohoku region.  This cherry blossom photo workshop will run about two weeks after my regular cherry blossom photo workshop, specifically the Morioka region, Aomori, and Akita prefecture.   Akita is home to Kubota Castle, a historic samurai castle that was part of a land bequest by Tokugawa Ieyasu to Satake Yoshinobu in 1602.  The castle was completed in 1604, and as the grounds were planned, over 1,000 cherry blossom trees were planted, and these ancient cherry blossom trees remain there to this day.  During the bloom, there are traditional Japanese festivities such as traditional Japanese musical performers playing shamisen, koto, and at times dancers such as geisha taking part in the cherry blossom festivities, so when you join a Blain Harasymiw cross country Cherry Blossom Adventure Photography Adventure Workshop Tour, you are not only experiencing Japan’s perfect ephemeral blossom, you will also be experiencing authentic Japanese culture and with social distancing in the past, you can expect tea ceremonies will be held once again, and you could be sipping green tea and taking in the rich historical locations like Kubota Castle and other samurai fortresses across Japan while being entertained socially and Blain your photo workshop leader is an amateur historian so you will gain insight into true Japan historical facts and society.  The castle grounds and nearby park have three major varieties of cherry blossoms, the Somei Yoshino (Prunus yedoensis), the Higan-zakura (Prunus itosakura), and the much rarer Gyoiko blossom (Prunus gyoiko), one of the double blossom variety with far more petals than the Somei Yoshino five.  The Gyoiko blossom is extraordinary because rather than a shade of pink, the blossoms are a cream color, and depending on what part of their blossom cycle you spot and photograph them in, you may even see a green tinge to their many-petaled blossoms.  Many of the cultivated varieties are strong to the winter weather and because of their position on Japan’s main island, Honshu, they usually bloom later than their Kansai or Kanto counterparts because of their geographic snow country location.