As I had a very rare Saturday off last weekend my girlfriend and I took a long trip to Kawaguchiko station in the foreground of Mount Fuji where a special local bus took another 40 minutes to the viewing area of Fujishibzakura. It was a beautiful sunny day and though the flowers were only half in bloom it was my amazing to see such a spectacular picture postcard-type view of Japan’s icon looming in the background of the pink carpet of flowers.

This stunning landscape made the long journey worth it and to be fair just seeing either the Shiba zakura flowering or Mount Fuji on its own would have been very satisfying but being able to view the natural pink carpet on the skirt of Mount Fuji was a view like no other.