It's over for Tokyo, that brief period in spring known as hanami no kisetsu (the season to sit under a cherry-blossom tree and eat and drink oneself into oblivion).
No more of all that blue tarp on pavements and in parks, all that singing and clapping into the night. No more college girls vomiting into the bushes as hopeful guys hover nearby, waiting to whip out their hankies.
Ah, hanami! What is it about the sakura (cherry blossoms) that penetrates the innermost core of the Japanese, pressing all kinds of buttons and making us behave so . . . weirdly?