Amongst Tokyo’s cherry blossoms this weekend was a strange, and slightly scary sight – a Patriot missile launcher, in the city, ready to take on a satellite-carrying North Korean rocket.
Given the green light to blast off and take down the rocket if it comes near later this week or early next, deployed in the city centre, it was a very different sight to that of the thousands of people enjoying drinks and snacks beneath the sakura, which were in full bloom across the city.
Streams of people flocked into to the city’s parks – or found a spot beneath a tree crammed between skyscrapers (after, naturally, checking the Tokyo Weekender Guide to Sakura Season) – and a few in Chiyoda ward will have had even more reason to reach for the SLR, or smartphone camera, and add a unique snap to their collection of petal pictures!
Hopefully the person with a finger on the trigger stuck to green tea and a healthy bento over the weekend, as much of Tokyo wakes up with a hanami hangover this Monday.
