In my previous blog post from Kyoto, below, I portrayed its delicate beauty by showing a city where the cherry blossoms were at their peak.

This post is about another kind of beauty, a more observational sort.

It seems like a cliche to portray Kyoto in spring as a city of cherry blossoms and a profusion of flowering trees and plants.

Cliche or not, the truth is that Japan comes alive when the cherry trees bloom, and some kind of revitalizing energy is transmitted into the Japan psyche when the cherry trees flower.

Stunningly beautiful scenes become even more so when Kyoto is in full bloom.