Shosetsu or ( lesser snow ) is the name of the next season in the Japanese micro seasons.
starting with Rainbows Hide ( Niji Kakurete miezu ) November 22nd-26th.
Basically in these months you normally see more clear blue sky’s . It is a lovely time to visit Japan and I did just that on my trip in 2018.
The next subdivision is North wind blows the leaves from the trees (kitakaze konoha o harau ) November 27th-December 1st.
The beautiful autumn leaves are definitely more on the ground now than on the trees making a coloured carpet of leaves. Now the trees are bare the fruits of persimmon and Yuzu can clearly be seen.
The final subdivision is Tachibana citrus tree leaves start to turn yellow (Tachibana hajimete kibamu) December 2nd-December 6th.
Tachibana is a variety of mandarin orange. I remember fondly having these for breakfast most mornings and often packed an orange in my bag on our journeys out of Tokyo for the day.
One of our trips took us into the mountains of Chichibu to their annual night matsuri. The main event is held on the 3rd of December each year. Fire works are often a summer event in Japan but this winter matsuri is one of Japan’s top three main float festivals. Six floats in all decorated with lanterns and accompanied by drummers and flute players, they are pulled through the streets lined with food stalls to the main 2 hour firework event.
While we were waiting for the event to start we visited the most lovely vegan tea shop called Ametutimanimani
The tea shop is in an old Japanese house and the dessert are amazing . I chose a chai tea and matcha cake.
The owner is lovely and we really enjoyed our visit.
If your in Japan around this time and would love to see an amazing festival with lots of atmosphere I can really recommend going .
