Just wanted to show that there are many kinds of cherry trees in Europe too. Here are a few pictures I have taken in Brussels. With the Japanese pagoda in Laeken (northern Brussels), a Japanese could confuse it for Japan itself !
By the way, there were tens of thousands of people today watching the cherry blossoms and other flowers at the Royal Greenhouses... So hanami (including cherry blossoms) is definitely not unique to Japan. There were bus loads of sightseeers with only purpose to see flowers/blossoms here too.
In many parts of Belgium, there are streets/avenues lined with cherry trees (e.g. most streets in the Watermaal-Boistfort suburb of Brussels). In fact, I have seen much more streets lined with cherry trees here in Belgium than in Japan. Contrarily to Tokyo's white somei-yoshino-zakura, Belgium has a lot of really pink yae-zakura (as well as other varieties, including white ones too). So the image of the pink cherry trees fits better Belgium than Tokyo (if not Japan).
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