[Mystique]

Originally Posted by Ryuou

Man, I'm so jealous. I absolutely love Sakura. The amount of times one is allowed to see it in a life time is really limited and yet I have to spend time outside of Japan and miss it. If you think about it, you’d be lucky to see it 80-90 times in your life. In your whole life, just that amount of times. But how fleeting Sakura is lends a lot to its beauty some argue. Personally I’d rather have it bloom year-round.

I dunno what Chicago's like, but there are sakura trees in England too. It's not a flower just limited to Japan only
There's quite a few all over central Oxford too, my old uni and the schools surrounding it used to spout them (on trees typically bigger than japanese ones) in pink and white.
They do create quite a mess when the petals fall though, I think after spending 1 week in Kyoto during sakura season back in '04 (I arrived and it was 90% ready. I left and it was about 70% gone) - I'm not too crazy about them. There's something about literally breathing the stuff, spitting out petals and coming out plucking bits from your hair from the confettii shower that makes you think
'You know... 1 week a year is good enough for me...'