{"id":218,"date":"2003-03-11T22:37:28","date_gmt":"2003-03-11T22:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/?p=218"},"modified":"2003-03-11T22:37:28","modified_gmt":"2003-03-11T22:37:28","slug":"hana-anticipation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/2003\/03\/11\/hana-anticipation\/","title":{"rendered":"Hana Anticipation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"hanachuhi.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/blog\/archives\/blogpics\/hanachuhi.jpg?resize=350%2C244\" width=\"350\" height=\"244\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nSpring is just around the corner, and that means the cherry blossoms will soon be spreading across Japan like a pink tide. Starting from the southernmost tip of the country, the progression of blossoms will move steadily northward, followed with rapt attention by the media and a population ready for the annual cherry-blossom viewing parties (a chance to have fun and get drunk outside after the cold, winter season).<br \/>\nLike the ever-lengthening creep of the Christmas season (soon to begin right after Labor Day weekend in America), marketers in Japan appear to be starting the <span class=\"italic\">sakura<\/span> season early.<br \/>\nSuntory has introduced a special flavor to its Super Chi-Hi line of alcoholic drinks called <span class=\"italic\">Hana<\/span>, the Japanese word for flower. Flavored with cherry blossoms (I&#8217;m guessing artificial cherry flavor) and lemon, it&#8217;s packaged in the lovely pink cans you see above.<br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"fakehana.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/blog\/archives\/blogpics\/fakehana.jpg?resize=350%2C185\" width=\"350\" height=\"185\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nAlthough the cherry blossoms won&#8217;t &#8220;arrive&#8221; here in Nagano for at least another month, the eager folks at the Midori department store just couldn&#8217;t wait that long. Earlier this week, they planted two trees in front of the store which were meticulously grafted with plastic cherry blossoms. They looked a little out of place in the falling snow the other day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spring is just around the corner, and that means the cherry blossoms will soon be spreading across Japan like a pink tide. Starting from the southernmost tip of the country, the progression of blossoms will move steadily northward, followed with rapt attention by the media and a population ready for the annual cherry-blossom viewing parties&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/2003\/03\/11\/hana-anticipation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hana Anticipation<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entries-with-images","category-life-in-japan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5heLP-3w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}